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Date: Tue, 22 Dec 1998 00:51:05 +0100 (MET) From: Jan Haugland To: ************ Subject: Another JW blood death Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Priority: Normal From The Australian, http://www.theaustralian.com.au/masthead/theoz/state/4262377.htm -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Another Witness chooses maker over medicine By ADRIAN McGREGOR 22dec98 AN 18-year-old Jehovah's Witness who declined a blood transfusion has died in a Brisbane hospital after a rare rupture of an artery in her leg. She is the second Jehovah's Witness woman to die after refusing a blood transfusion in Princess Alexandra Hospital in the past fortnight. The first, a 26-year-old married woman, died in the hospital's renal unit after suffering a chronic debilitating kidney disease. Princess Alexandra doctors said yesterday that if the Brisbane teenager, Tully Ioannides, of Bethania, had agreed to a transfusion, she would be alive today. Friends said that when told her life was in danger, Ms Ioannides replied: "That's all right, there's worse things than dying." Ms Ioannides died on Saturday morning amid emotional scenes, in which her family, friends and 20 of her young Witness congregation played guitars and sang hymns to her in a bedside vigil. Her father, Nick Ioannides, also a Witness, said: "It was beautiful, it was incredible, but it was heartbreaking. The whole ward stood still, even the staff were choked up." But her mother, Ann Ioannides, a non-practising Witness, said: "To a lot of people, it's not ever going to make any sense. I had to do what my daughter wanted, but I blame the hospital. My daughter goes in with a little problem and it turns out to be a tragedy." But the hospital's medical superintendent, Michael Cleary, said the case was extraordinarily rare. He said: "In our quick look around, we have not been able to find a case where the problem, a ruptured aneurism in her artery, has occurred in a young person before." Ms Ioannides, a coffee shop waitress, was admitted to Logan Hospital, in Brisbane's southern suburbs, at 9.20pm last Wednesday after noticing a swelling in her calf. Dr Cleary said Logan staff at first suspected a deep vein thrombosis, a clot that could break off, flow into the lungs and become life-threatening. After Ms Ioannides was transferred to Princess Alexandra at 8.30pm on Thursday, radiologists identified the real problem as a ruptured aneurism. But by Friday afternoon, Ms Ioannides's blood volume consisted of only one litre of red cells and four of plasma, as against a normal ratio of three of red cells to two plasma. "She had lost a huge amount of blood, leaking into her leg tissues and, without a transfusion, doctors were giving a fairly guarded prognosis," Dr Cleary said." --------------------------------------------------------------------------- My Q: Which father would describe the time of the death of his daughter as "beautiful"? Rgds, - Jan |