A New York court has dismissed a suit by a Jehovah’s Witness who sued doctors for giving her a blood transfusion that saved her life.
Nancy DiGeronimo sued her doctor and Staten Island University Hospital for medical malpractice alleging the transfusions of another person’s blood conflicted with her religious beliefs, reports the Staten Island Advance newspaper.
The 5-year-old case against Dr. Allen Fuchs and University Hospital, was dismissed with the court finding the transfusion didn’t deviate from accepted standards of care and that DiGeronimo had failed to show the infusion of blood had hurt her.
DiGeronimo, then 34, was released from the hospital on April 9, 2004, five days after giving birth.
“The plaintiff’s argument, taken to its logical conclusion, is that the doctor should have allowed her to die rather than give her an ‘allogenic’ blood transfusion,” state Supreme Court Justice Joseph J. Maltese wrote in a decision handed down Thursday. “Since the plaintiff’s transfusion saved her life, this action is analogous to one for ‘wrongful life’ against the doctor. However, there is no cause of action for ‘wrongful life’ in the state of New York. In this case, there is no departure from good and acceptable medical care and there is no proximate cause of a legally recognized injury.”
Dr. Fuchs’ lawyer, Irene Ziegler of the Bloomfield-based firm of Amabile & Erman, said she was “happy” for him. “I think the judge made the correct decision,” she said.
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