But the procedure is not without its own risks, including graft-versus-host disease, infertility, dysfunction of various organs such as the heart, lungs, kidneys and brain and “a significant mortality risk, which is generally in the range of 10-20%”.
In court documents tell how the teen’s mother explained why she does not want the treatment.
In a text message she sent to a nurse consultant at the hospital on the morning of January 27 this year, she referred to a “last final cure” for the teen being through God and not the hospital.
“[The text message] stated that the ‘precious blood of Jesus’ had ‘flushed out the evil’ in [her daughter’s] body,” Justice Andrea Tsalamandris noted in her judgment.
The teen herself says that it is her “own body” that she will be “living with for the rest of [her] life” and that she is “supposed to have a choice”.
The principle of parens patriae – translated from Latin to mean “parent of the nation” – allows the court to act as “supreme parent of children … in the manner in which a wise, affectionate, and careful parent would act for the welfare of the child”, according to the court documents.
It means that despite the wishes of the child and her mother, the court has the final say.
It is a position that has infuriated Mark Hobart, a former Melbourne GP who lost his medical licence during the pandemic for refusing to administer Covid-19 vaccines.
The 68-year-old said his main concern is that “she has been ordered to have forced medical treatment to which she does not consent, nor her mother”.
“That is what happened during Covid with the lockdowns and forced treatment by the government,” he said.
Online, Hobart wrote that “this was his fear” during Covid-19 – “forced medical treatment of a 15-year-old against her and her mother’s wishes”.
The teen, who was diagnosed with leukaemia in November 2022, went into remission before relapsing in August 2024 when she developed a secondary leukaemia, called therapy-related myeloid neoplasm.
She relapsed again in early 2025, after four to five months without treatment, at which time she required two rounds of salvage treatment, doctors said, noting also that without the transplant, she is at “very high risk of relapse” and “if she relapses, available therapies are likely to be both less efficacious and more toxic for [her]” and that “this has a direct and adverse correlation with JJ’s life expectancy”.
Her treating team at the RCH recommend that for curative treatment she undergo a haematopoietic stem cell transplant, also referred to in the affidavit material as a bone-marrow transplant.
A second opinion was obtained for the court from senior paediatric oncologist, Associate Professor Peter Downie, at the Monash Children’s Hospital Children’s Cancer Centre.
In a letter dated December 11, 2024, Associate Professor Downie stated he had met with the teenager and her mother and reviewed her medical history.
He was of the opinion that, based on current knowledge and data, her “only real chance of being cured” was to have a bone-marrow transplant and that without further treatment, the teen would “succumb to her disease”.
After the patient’s mother told the hospital she “will not consent to the recommended treatment”, the hospital brought an urgent application to the Supreme Court to lawfully administer it.
The teen, represented by a solicitor from Victorian Legal Aid, and her mother both opposed the application.
Her father, who the court heard is estranged from his daughter and has not seen her since 2018, supported the hospital’s bid to carry out the transplant.
“In considering this application, I have taken a holistic view as to what is in [the teenager’s] best interests,” Justice Tsalamandris wrote.
“I am satisfied that the recommended treatment should be provided to [her] as a matter of urgency.”
Child and adolescent psychiatrist Dr Andrew Court examined the teen on March 30 this year.
He observed an overarching theme in her communication with him that she was “very angry with her treating team, for a range of reasons”.
“Dr Court noted that [the teen] acknowledged that she ‘knew she needed a BMT’, and she wanted to live, however she was so angry with her treating team that she was not prepared to ‘make it easy for them’,” Justice Tsalamandris wrote.
The teen’s mother told the court that she is a religious person but said her “religious views have not stopped her taking [her daughter] to medical appointments”.
In her judgment, Justice Tsalamandris wrote that it is “regrettable” that the teen “has such strong feelings of anger towards her treating team, when by virtue of this judgment, she is about to begin lifesaving treatment at the RCH”.
The treatment, she wrote, “will involve a prolonged period of admission, isolation from siblings and friends, and the risk of serious complications”.
“Without intending any criticism of her treating team, I consider valuable insights can be gained from [her] perceptions of her treatment at the hospital to date,” she wrote.
“As noted, there is a risk the recommended treatment may adversely impact [her] fertility, and there is a prospect that she could undergo fertility preservation procedures at the Royal Women’s Hospital.”
It is not an isolated case.
In 2018, the Supreme Court ordered that a 17-year-old first-time mother-to-be be forced to receive a blood transfusion “as a last resort” against her will when she gave birth at the Mercy Hospital in Heidelberg.
The Jehovah’s Witness did not want the procedure to go ahead because her religion forbids followers from receiving blood transfusions.
The girl’s mother, who said she would not consent to the hospital administering blood to her daughter, told the court receiving a transfusion would have a significant impact on the girl’s wellbeing.
“Being forced to have that done against her will would be something like having violence done to her or being raped,” she said in a statement read to the court.
“She wants to do the right thing by Jehovah, by God.”
It was previously reported that the teen told a child psychiatrist that the Bible says “it’s wrong to eat or drink blood if you lose blood and have to let it go and pour it out on the floor” and that “if the baby has to die, she has to die”.
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