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Listen to this VM left by an administrator at Rochester General Hospital stating that their policy is to take newborns into medical custody if their parents refuse Vitamin K and erythromycin.
UPDATE 8/2/2015
While the person who recorded this voice mail originally gave permission to post it on YouTube, apparently due to pressure they have asked it be removed. It was a short audio recording from a voice mail left on someone’s answering machine regarding the hospital’s policy on erythromycin eye ointment and vitamin K injections for newborns.
Hi _____ this is ______ from Rochester General. Sorry to take so long to get back to you. I have a policy that you inquired about vitamin K and erythromycin… our policy here – and you were inquiring about that. I have them in my hands, which you can pick them up and copy if you wanted to… Our policy says all newborns will receive the mandated eye (ointment) and vitamin K injections.
If anybody declines, or the parents continue to refuse the interventions, then the security is informed that medical custody is necessary… The hospital will take over medical custody.
“First, do no harm” (primum non nocere) The Declaration of Helsinki of the World Medical Association of 1964 expanded upon the Nuremberg Code to require: consent, safety considerations (including mental suffering), balance of risks, and the right to withdraw. A good doctor knows that a man whose mind is changed against his will is a man of the same opinion still. Norbet Wiener published: “The Human Use of Human Beings” …. in it he fought for respect, fairness and non-maleficence. If a hospital has to pull rank, and threaten punitive action then that hospital should get it’s rights revoked. A good leader has evidence and rationals, not terror mongering. I hate liars who use a kernel of truth to play power games. If you give a small child a hammer, pretty soon he will see that everything must be hammered. Take away their equipment, their money, their license, their permission to practice, their resources and their voice. Grow up Rochester General Hospital. Don’t make me make you grow up. One example of the power/blame shifting is the way a hospital will scare a woman into induction, “Your placenta is too old and failing”; then when the induction goes bad the hospital will tell the same woman, “Your body just wasn’t ready.” So foolish. The buck stops here. I hereafter, refuse to fill out their surveys or cancel my appointments with 24 hour notice or call them when they send me false bills.