Background

In Lindholm and the estate after Leif Lindholm v Denmark [2024] ECHR 835, the applicants were Lilian Elisabeth Lindholm, born in 1953 and the estate of her late husband, Leif Ingolf Lindholm, both of whom were Jehovah’s Witnesses.

In 2014, Mr Lindholm was admitted to the emergency unit of the local hospital in Odense after a serious fall resulting in injury. He had been warfarin on prescription to reduce the risk of cerebral thrombosis. His daughter had told the healthcare staff that, as a Jehovah’s Witness, he did not wish to receive a blood transfusion and gave them an advance medical directive and a Health Care Power of Attorney making that position clear. Mr Lindholm then suffered a subarachnoid haemorrhage, and though the family maintained that he did not wish to receive blood products in any form, he was nevertheless given an emergency transfusion. He died on 21 October 2014; it was common ground that the cause of death was not linked to the blood transfusion [6-26]. Continue reading →