Five Jehovah's Witnesses sue Okinawa Prefecture, saying public hospitals refused to treat them unless they consented to transfusion

Five Jehovah's Witnesses have sued Okinawa Prefecture, saying two of its public hospitals refused to treat them unless they signed a form consenting to a blood transfusion. The suit was filed in the Naha District Court on 18 May 2026 and seeks about ¥16.74 million in damages, and, Ryukyu Shimpo reports, a ruling that the hospitals' transfusion policy is invalid.^[1] It became publicly known three months later, when Okinawa's two main daily newspapers reported it on 27 and 28 August.^[1][2]

The hospitals named are Okinawa Prefectural Chubu Hospital and Yaeyama Hospital, both run by the prefecture.^[1][2] According to Okinawa Times, the court has set the first oral argument for 16 September 2026 — the opening hearing at which each side states its position.^[2]

What the plaintiffs say happened

Both papers base their accounts on the complaint — 訴状 (sojō), the document that opens a Japanese civil case.

Ryukyu Shimpo reports that from 2023 onward, when the five sought surgery or medical examinations at the two hospitals, they were told that signing a transfusion consent form was a condition of being treated. They declined to sign, on grounds of faith, and were refused care.^[1] Okinawa Times gives the period as 2023 to 2026 and adds that the plaintiffs, then living in the prefecture, had submitted written notice that they would not accept a transfusion for religious reasons.^[2]

Both papers report that some plaintiffs then had to travel to medical institutions far away and pay the cost of getting there themselves.^[1][2] Okinawa Times reports that the group includes a pregnant woman and people living on remote islands.^[2] Ryukyu Shimpo, citing the plaintiffs' lawyer, reports that four of the five still live in the prefecture and the fifth lived there at the time.^[1]

The legal argument, as Ryukyu Shimpo reports it, is that the hospitals "made signature on a transfusion consent form a condition, and closed off the opportunity for treatment at that hospital," and that it is unlawful for a public hospital to put up such a barrier. The plaintiffs say they were treated differently because of their religion and suffered mental anguish. Besides damages they ask the court to declare the policy invalid, as contrary to the constitutional guarantees of equality under the law and freedom of religion.^[1]

These are allegations, unproven and untested.

What the hospitals say

Both papers carry the same response from the hospitals: "We are examining the content of the complaint and cannot comment at this time."^[1][2]

That is the only response either paper carries. It is worth being precise about who said it: Ryukyu Shimpo attributes it to Chubu and Yaeyama hospitals, and Okinawa Times to "the hospital side," speaking to its reporters.^[1][2] The defendant in the lawsuit is the prefecture itself, which owns and runs both hospitals.

The policy at the centre of the case

Chubu Hospital publishes its position on its own website, under the heading "To patients who refuse blood transfusion." The page carries no date. As it stood on 2 September 2026, it says that the hospital:^[3]

• aims at "patient-centred" care and tries for treatment without transfusion wherever possible;
• but particularly in cases such as emergency, trauma and paediatric care — patients under 16 — where it judges that there is danger to life without a transfusion, "has no choice but to transfuse";
• notes that for elective surgery, naming hernia repair, gallbladder removal, mastectomy and hysterectomy, most operations can be done without transfusion, though rarely one becomes necessary;
• states that "as medical professionals entrusted with patients' lives," under a restriction of never transfusing under any circumstances, "the essential purpose of treatment — saving life — cannot be achieved";
• and concludes that it therefore will not sign the "transfusion-refusal and indemnity certificate" — the document by which a patient refuses blood and releases the hospital from liability for the consequences.

The page adds that in some cases the hospital may recommend the patient transfer to a different hospital.^[3]

Two different documents are involved, and they should not be run together. The hospital's published page is about a form it declines to sign: the patient's refusal-and-indemnity certificate. The claim in the lawsuit is about a form the patients say they were asked to sign: a transfusion consent form. They are different pieces of paper and different acts, and the case may turn on that difference.

Ryukyu Shimpo reports that both hospitals publish a policy of transfusing where they judge there is a danger to life without it.^[1]

Not the only such case

Ryukyu Shimpo reports that similar suits have also been brought against Nagoya City University, Shiga University of Medical Science and Kumamoto University.^[1] Two of those were reported earlier in the year in Kyodo News copy the same paper carried. In April a Jehovah's Witness woman was reported to have sued Shiga University of Medical Science in the Otsu District Court for ¥3.3 million, saying she was refused cataract surgery without transfusion.^[7] In June six Jehovah's Witnesses living in Kumamoto Prefecture were reported to have sued in the Kumamoto District Court for ¥19.8 million, saying Kumamoto University Hospital's refusal to treat or operate on them was discriminatory and unlawful.^[8] Both dispatches are Kyodo News copy, so each rests on a single agency account rather than on independent reporting by two newsrooms.

Whether these cases are connected to one another is not established. Neither paper says they are coordinated, share lawyers, or are directed by the Jehovah's Witnesses organisation. What can be said is what the reporting establishes: Ryukyu Shimpo says similar suits have also been brought against those three universities,^[1] and two of the three were reported filed this year.^[7][8]

Jehovah's Witnesses and blood

Jehovah's Witnesses decline blood transfusions on religious grounds. In their own published explanation, the organisation calls this "a religious issue rather than a medical one," resting it on biblical commands to "abstain from blood," and says Witnesses seek out doctors skilled in surgical care without blood rather than refusing medical treatment as such.^[4] Courts in many countries have been asked to decide what follows from that refusal — for adults, for children, and for the doctors caught in between.

That question is live in several jurisdictions at once. Brazil's Supreme Court has listed 30 September to take up whether doctors may transfuse an adult, capable patient against an expressed refusal.^[5] In Scotland, Lord Braid published an opinion on 20 August explaining why he had authorised medical treatment for children whose parents had refused it, two of the three cases involving Jehovah's Witness families who had refused a transfusion.^[6] The Okinawa suit approaches the same territory from a different angle: the plaintiffs are not objecting to a transfusion they received. They say they were denied care altogether.

What happens next

The first oral argument is listed for 16 September 2026 at the Naha District Court.^[2]

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About the sourcing of this article

Japanese courts publish no electronic case docket. Civil case records are inspected in person at the courthouse — here, the Naha District Court in Okinawa — under Article 91 of Japan's Code of Civil Procedure.

This account therefore rests on the two named newspaper reports cited below, both of which state that they are describing the complaint, and on Chubu Hospital's own published policy — not on the court file. The figures, dates and allegations set out above are as those reports describe them.