BROOKLYN, N.Y. (CN) - A hospital in Brooklyn may be liable for its role in causing a Jehovah's Witness patient who had refused a blood transfusion to receive one anyway, a New York appellate division ruled.
Joan Salandy signed a form to refuse a blood transfusion during knee-replacement surgery, claiming it would violate her religious beliefs. She claimed the Kingsbrook Jewish Medical Center failed to tell her doctor, a private physician at the hospital, that she had signed the refusal form.
During surgery, she was given a transfusion of her own blood that had been lost and collected during the procedure. She sued the operating surgeon, a first-year resident who signed a transfusion consent form, and the medical center.
The appellate division overturned a ruling for Salandy, concluding that she had raised "triable issues of fact" over whether the hospital knew or should have known that her doctor would order the transfusion despite her wishes.
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