Hospital can perform baby's surgery that parents declined

A judge ruled Wednesday that Texas Children's Hospital could perform potentially life-saving heart surgery on a baby whose parents declined to consent on religious grounds.

State District Judge Michael Gomez signed an order permitting the hospital to provide "life-sustaining medical treatment, including blood products" to 2-month-old Gabriel Zepeda, whose parents are Jehovah's Witnesses. The faith forbids the use of donated blood.

"It is the opinion of Dr. Douglas Moodie, Gabriel's cardiologist, that the boy will suffer permanent harm or death unless he receives this operation," hospital lawyers said in the court petition.

By phone, Moodie told the court the baby has holes in his cardiovascular system flooding his lungs with blood. He called the surgery "critically necessary."

A Texas Children's spokeswoman wouldn't say whether doctors had performed the surgery. She said Gabriel was in stable condition Wednesday night.

Gabriel's parents, who were not identified in court documents, declined a Chronicle request for an interview made through the hospital. The court petition said that despite being told of the possible need to administer blood products, the parents "refuse to consent."

Literal interpretation

Jehovah's Witnesses' beliefs derive from an interpretation of a biblical passage to prohibit the consumption of blood, either by mouth or through veins? The faith's literature directs members to refuse transfusions even in a life-or-death situation.

Such conflicts have been uncommon in the Texas Medical Center, partly because famed heart surgeon Denton Cooley's willingness to operate without blood transfusions made the Texas Heart Institute a center for Jehovah's Witnesses needing surgery. Cooley first performed bloodless open-heart surgery in the 1960s.

The idea caught on nationally in the years after. More than 100 hospitals have established bloodless surgery programs, according to a 2008 Los Angeles Times article.

Blood required

In a statement, Texas Children's said in situations like this, "we work with the family to help them understand that we will do what we can to minimize blood loss in a surgery, but always have to have blood on backup in case it is needed for life-saving circumstances."

"Patient care and safety are always our first and most important priority," said the statement.

Blood products were required in Gabriel's case "even though the surgery will be performed in a minimally invasive method," the court petition said.

Moodie told the court that Gabriel was at risk of "significant heart failure" and said, "we need to operate." He said the doctors would put a band around an artery to the lungs, which would allow the baby to survive until he's old enough for follow-up surgery to close the holes.

Gomez's order lasts until May 23.

Chronicle reporter Patti Hart contributed to this report.

todd.ackerman@chron.com