The Rancagua Court of Appeals accepted the appeal for protection deduced by the Regional Hospital and ordered it to proceed with the blood transfusion and all the treatments required to protect and safeguard the life and physical integrity of a newborn.
In a unanimous ruling, the Second Chamber of the appeals court – made up of the minister Michel González Carvajal, the judicial prosecutor Álvaro Martínez Alarcón and the lawyer (i) Marco Arellano Quiroz – established that the refusal of the minor’s parents, who are members of Jehovah’s Witnesses, cannot be an obstacle to proceed with the transfusion of blood and blood products that your child requires, in the face of an imminent risk of losing his life.
“(…) the act that motivates the appeal is the refusal of the parents of the newborn (…), who profess the cult of the Jehovah’s Witnesses church, to the procedure of blood transfusion and blood products for their son, treatment that is necessary , since he is in the Neonatal Critical Patient Unit of the Regional Hospital, due to active bleeding through the endotracheal tube and in venipuncture sites, which keeps him at imminent risk of requiring a transfusion”, states the ruling.
The resolution adds that: “In effect, the principle of the intangibility of consent related to freedom of conscience, translated in this case as refusing the transfusion act, yields when we are facing an urgent situation, where life and its prognosis are at risk. , being the transfusion an essential act to obtain survival, this means, the lack of another medical or therapeutic alternative to achieve said objective”.
For the appellate court, in the case: “(…) in short, the decision of the appellants affects the life of their son, a unique and autonomous being, in whose respect his parents have the fundamental duty to ensure his well-being. In other words, the right to freedom of conscience provided for in article 19 No. 6 of the Political Constitution of the Republic, regarding religious beliefs, is limited, in this case, by the fundamental rights of others and for the right to life of the child (…)”.
Therefore, it is resolved: “that the protection resource deduced in these proceedings is accepted, without costs, and the blood transfusion and all other treatments that the child’s state of health (…) requires to protect and safeguard his or her health are ordered.” life and physical integrity.
