People Blaming Me Don’t Know How Much I Love My Daughter – Dad Who Rejected Blood Transfusion

Emmanuel Onokpise is the father of the baby who was allegedly rescued by officials of the Lagos State Government and the Office of the Public Defender and given blood transfusion for jaundice, after he declined the medical procedure in line with his faith as a Jehovah’s Witness. In an encounter with ALEXANDER OKERE, he talks about the controversy surrounding his baby’s treatment

What exactly was wrong with your baby before she was taken to hospital?

— The doctors informed us after she was delivered that she had jaundice. She was being treated for it.

On why he requested that his daughter be discharged without Doctor’s permission he said: “The doctor at the hospital of birth discharged my daughter because he could not treat her without administering blood transfusion, which I had considered as not being in the best interest of the child. He referred us to a better equipped hospital that could treat the baby without administering blood and wrote a referral letter to that effect. So, we did not have any problem with the hospital.

When you took your child away from the hospital, what alternative did you have in mind to save its life?
When we were discharged from Avon Hospital, we were referred to Outreach Children Specialist Hospital, which we were informed could treat our daughter’s condition without blood. When we were discharged from Outreach Children Specialist Hospital, because we could not continue to afford the charges, we sustained the treatment of our daughter with traditional therapy against jaundice until she was readmitted to Massey Children Hospital, where she was being treated successfully with erythropoietin that we purchased.

You were said to have rejected the blood transfusion because it was against your religious beliefs...? “I have read of many dangers associated with blood transfusion. I have also read of medical cases where people who were treated by doctors without blood fared better than those who were treated with blood transfusion. Furthermore, Jehovah, the creator, expressly prohibits the ingestion of blood.