Health New Zealand has approached the courts for intervention after a four-month-old baby’s parents refused permission for their infant’s heart surgery, saying a blood transfusion from a donor who had received a COVID jab would be “tainted”.
In a video interview with an anti-vaccine campaigner, the parents said their child had been diagnosed with “severe pulmonary valve stenosis” and needed surgery “almost immediately”, The Guardian reported, but they were concerned that blood from someone who was vaccinated against COVID-19 would be used in the procedure.
“We don’t want blood tainted by vaccination. That’s the end of the deal – we are fine with anything else these doctors want to do,” the father said.
Health New Zealand, which manages the country’s health service and hospitals, has taken the legal route, seeking guardianship of the child to be transferred to the courts so the baby can get the surgery, the New Zealand Herald reported.
The parents and the agency met in court last week, where a lawyer for the agency said the case was urgent because a child with the same condition would normally have been treated weeks ago.
New Zealand Blood Service said it does not separate blood based on whether the people who donated it was vaccinated or unvaccinated, and that there was no evidence that blood from vaccinated people created any health risks.
The parents’ lawyer said they were looking for better care for their child than what the state was offering, and that their concerns were being dismissed because her clients were being treated as “conspiracy theorists”.
The parents said they had more than 20 unvaccinated people willing to donate blood, but the New Zealand Blood Service had not approved them to use any of it.
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