A growing number of medical experts say that when other methods of treatment are used instead of blood transfusions, it is more medically beneficial for patients.
In 2013, a special report on blood was published in the medical journal of Stanford University, with an article entitled "Why is the practice of donating blood declining?"
"Over the past ten years, various studies have shown that patients in hospitals around the world are being given excessive amounts of blood during surgery and for treatment," the article said.
This article quotes Dr. Patricia Ford, director of a clinic at Pennsylvania Hospital, where treatments and surgeries are performed without blood transfusions.
Dr. Ford says: "In medical circles, it is a fact that if a person loses less than a certain amount of blood and is not given blood, he will die as if blood transfusion is the only way to save his life." This is true in certain cases but not in most patients and in most cases.
Dr. Ford, who treats about 700 Jehovah's Witnesses each year, says: “Many doctors are under the misconception that a large number of patients cannot survive without transfusions. One clinic examined patients who had had heart surgery over a 28-year period.
The report was published in 2012 in a medical journal. According to the report, Jehovah's Witnesses recovered faster than patients who received blood transfusions, had fewer complications, had a better chance of survival in the days following the operation, and 20 more after the operation.
The probability of surviving for a year was almost equal. The Wall Street Journal published an article on April 8, 2013, which stated, “For a long time, patients who refuse to take blood for religious reasons have been operated on without donated blood.
Many hospitals are now adopting this method of treatment. Surgeons who are in favor of operating without blood say that this reduces the costs involved in buying, storing, preparing, testing, and donating blood to patients.
Infections and complications caused by the disease are also reduced so that patients can be discharged from the hospital sooner. That's why Robert Lawrence, a surgeon at the Cleveland Clinic, says, "When you donate blood to a patient, you think you are benefiting, but research shows that this is not the case."