MEDICAL professionals and Jehovah’s Witnesses have clashed over whether or not the intervention by the High Court to save the life of a seriously ill African woman undermines their long-standing consensus on declining blood transfusions.

FIVE-and-a-half years after Rachel Kiely was killed by a neighbour while out walking the dogs, it is quite remarkable how the family has managed to rein in any feelings of anger and bitterness felt towards her killer.

Doctors can go against parents wishes to grant life-saving blood transfusions to children, it was claimed today.

THE High Court decision to order a life-saving operation to proceed on a five-month-old baby girl, despite her mother’s objection on religious grounds, was the only course of action to follow.