Hospital Information Services

You will be pleased to know that a new department, Hospital Information Services, is now functioning at Brooklyn. It will try to help you if it has not been possible for you or a nearby hospital committee to find a cooperative doctor or surgical team when needed. This would be when doctors you have contacted have refused to proceed with needed surgery or treatment unless you permit the use of blood transfusions.

It is not, however, a department for finding you a new family doctor because you have moved or your former doctor has retired or died. You can ask in your own congregation for the names of doctors the local brothers go to for general medical attention.

The new department also supervises the work of 96 hospital committees across the country. At present these committees are busy updating our list of helpful surgeons. They are also now visiting various hospitals to try to develop improved arrangements for treating Witness patients. (Compare Proverbs 17:17.) More information concerning the operation of this department and its service will be provided later.

Elders who make up the hospital committees sometimes have to make long-distance calls to various specialists and treatment centers in their efforts to aid a brother in finding a surgeon who will respect his stand on blood. Of course, when this is the case, the costs for these calls are obviously those of the patient, as are all other expenses of his illness and medical care.​—Rom. 13:8.

With you we pray that this new arrangement will prove to be a protection and help for our brothers.​—John 13:35.