Jehovah’s Witnesses and “non-transfusion” hospitals
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The Watchtower Society, since they have introduced a blood transfusion ban (1944-1945), pays high attention to discouraging people, especially Jehovah’s Witnesses, from going in to it. In their publications they try to sell the substitutes and provide with the “arguments” for harmful effects of transfusion.
Let’s see, what Watchtower Society has done for bringing and developing the alternative to blood transfusions.
We would not blame Jehovah’s Witnesses for not having or building their clinics or hospitals, but they articulate and emphasize their analytical contention about the blood transfusion and criticise the entire word for using it. We have no other option, but to say a few words about that.
An example of the different behaviour to the one represented by Jehovah’s Witnesses are the Seventh-day Adventists. A religion not much bigger in its membership than Jehovah’s Witnesses, known among other things for not eating foods that the Old Testament describes as unclean (e.g. pork), for not drinking coffee, black tea and alcohol.
Adventists write about themselves as follows:
“The new health approach, expressed in the Adventist program of health reform (...), manifests itself (...) secondly − in organizing and running preventive care facilities (i.e. sanatoriums, clinics, medical centres) and hospitals; thirdly, in running their own medical education (medical academies, nursing and dietary schools); fourthly − in running food factories of foodstuffs and fifth − in running a wide range of sanitary education” (The Adventism, Z. Łyko, Warsaw 1970, p. 212).
“According to 1969 data, the Church ran 136 sanatoriums and hospitals, as well as 320 clinics and other care facilities, in which approximately 22,000 healthcare workers were employed. These institutions provided medical assistance to about 5 million people that year. (...) On the top, the medical school preparing the future healthcare staff, called Loma Linda University...” (The Adventism, Z. Łyko, Warsaw 1970, p. 214).
The same Adventist, Z. Łyko wrote in much newer publication:
1. Number of hospitals and sanatoriums…………..162
2. Number of nursing homes…………..102
3. Number of medical care facilities…………..361
4. Number of orphanages and orphan care units…………..25
5. The annual number of patients…………..9 299 792
6. The number of healthy food factories…………..27
The Seventh-day Adventist Church, Z. Łyko, Warsaw 2000, p. 462.
Arguable, patients served by Adventists with medical treatment are not fed the food they forbid to eat themselves. And, what is worth to emphasize − they serve everyone, regardless they are their followers or not.
Baptists and Methodists also build and run their clinics. For example, Baptists provide medical care at their Northeast Baptist Hospital in San Antonio (Texas, USA), where they treat without using blood (see http://www.jg-teksten.nl/noblood.html). This is the first “bloodless” hospital in San Antonio, where even complex heart surgeries take place without blood transfusions. Doctors ensure that only safe procedures are used, none of them is an experimental one. It is estimated that the cost of surgery without blood transfusion amounts to over 16 thousand dollars, while the price of the operation using transfusion reaches 23 thousand dollars and more. Raymond Talbert, a blind Jehovah’s Witness who underwent a surgery on the heart without a blood transfusion, left the hospital four days after the surgery. Meanwhile, patients who have had blood transfusion must stay in the hospital averagely for 15-22 days. (In this hospital, blood transfusions are used only in extreme cases). During the operation of Talbert, a Cell Saver machine was used (a machine that transfers the patient’s blood back).
What did the Watchtower Society do about the non-transfusion treatment?
Well, let’s list: they built hundreds of assembly halls around the world (each of them can host over 1,000 listeners). They opened, in almost every country where Jehovah’s Witnesses are present, their centres (called Bethel Homes), and in many countries advanced printing factories. Numerous farms were erected only in the USA. Thousands of people were employed in these facilities… for free. The beauty of those buildings and the surroundings are shown and praised in the Watchtower Society’s publications. For example, the book Jehovah’s Witnesses—Proclaimers of God’s Kingdom (1993), includes dozens of pictures of those objects from the whole globe, including interiors of the purchased hotel in New York (see pages 352-401).
Then, it is fair to ask if Jehovah’s Witnesses could not afford to build even one hospital which cures people without blood transfusions, equipped with modern medical equipment. No one would probably require them to cure “people from the world” in them, who are not their followers.
Taking into consideration the fact that they represent relatively small population and that blood transfusion is not very frequent treatment, one symbolic hospital would be enough. Surely, with the funds collected throughout the years they would definitely be in a position to build and run at least one hospital, even for themselves.
Every year, the Watch Tower Society spends millions of dollars on internal needs:
During the 2016 service year, Jehovah’s Witnesses spent over $213 million in caring for special pioneers, missionaries, and circuit overseers in their field service assignments. Worldwide, a total of 19,818 ordained ministers staff the branch facilities. All are members of the Worldwide Order of Special Full-Time Servants of Jehovah’s Witnesses. (2017 Yearbook of Jehovah’s Witnesses p. 177 [in 2015 “over $236 million” – 2016 Yearbook of Jehovah’s Witnesses p.176], emphasis added).
Without a doubt, even bigger amount of money is spend to build more Kingdom Halls, assembly halls, to buy properties and publish over 100 million copies of the Watchtower and Awake! magazines every month!
Or maybe they just want to perturb the public when they protest against (alleged) violations of the human rights/patient rights, while the blood is transfused to a Jehovah’s Witness, against his/her will or consciousness? Isn’t it better to cure than to disturb people? It’s better to have a hospital than to threaten doctors with lawsuits for saving Jehovah’s Witnesses life when the Watchtower Society does not accept a treatment. For them it seems to be enough to create a Hospital Liaison Committees, that instruct doctors how to cure and suggest what is better for a patient.
If Jehovah’s Witnesses have deep knowledge about medical treatments, would it not be better for them to offer professional cure to their fellow believers and help themselves, and others (if JWs want to do that). After all, we cannot forget, some of them have medical education and experience.
Or maybe, the Watchtower Society does not build non-transfusion hospitals, because they don’t want to take responsibility for the possible death of its publishers treated without blood?
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