1News Reporter Logan Church was at the High Court at Auckland this week as an unusual case involving a baby with a heart condition played out while protesters gathered outside.
As one of the lawyers left the courtroom at the High Court in Auckland, he was rushed by a woman filming him with her phone on a camera stabiliser, ignoring court rules, leading to an altercation between the lawyer, the woman, and court security.
Outside court, people openly discussed the best way to execute the lawyers and journalists in the courtroom. The discussion was on the merits of hanging versus lethal injection.
Medical staff at Starship Children's Hospital say a meeting had been "hijacked" by a supporter of the family spouting conspiracy theories.
This was the reality of a court case this week over the urgent heart surgery a baby needed due to being diagnosed with a congenital heart defect.
This surgery, the doctors said, was a matter of life and death.
But it was the clash of two different realities that led to the case in the first place.
On one side, the parents of the baby. Loving parents that want the heart surgery to happen, but only with an assurance that the blood products used in the surgery would come from donors that had not received the Covid-19 vaccine. They say they had genuine safety concerns about "contaminated blood", as well as the vaccines in general.
Specifically, they were concerned the blood would contain residual Covid-19 mRNA spike proteins that would not, in their view, be safe.
They wanted to use the blood of donors who had not been vaccinated with the Pfizer vaccine.
They wanted the court to order the NZ Blood Service (NZBS) to facilitate this.
On the other side, medical professionals at Starship and the NZ Blood Service disagreed. They explained they had no safety concerns. They said direct blood donation was problematic.
It comes after the courts became the guardian of a baby who needs urgent heart surgery, 1News' Logan Church reports. (Source: 1News)
Over several meetings, the relationship between the parents and Starship became strained, outlined in the judgement.
"On 25 November 2022, having not heard back from [the baby's] parents formally, another meeting was organised," the judgement said.
"The doctor said this meeting was 'hijacked' by the parent's support person who "proceeded to pressurise the specialists with her theory about conspiracies in New Zealand and even said that deaths in infants getting transfusions were occurring in Starship Hospital".
"After some minutes, the specialists asked to leave and ended up walking out of the meeting with the support person continuing to try to talk to them. As a result, they were unable to explain their position to the parents."
Te Whatu Ora then applied for the courts to become guardians of the child – a rare but not uncommon step for the health system to take if they reach an impasse with parents.
"I accept that [the baby's] parents have genuine concerns about the risk of using blood from vaccinated donors that are very different from the views of [the baby's] clinicians and NZBS," the judge said in his decision.
But the application was successful, the judge ordering the baby to be placed under the guardianship of the court until the baby has recovered from the surgery – or at the latest until January 31, 2023.
He appointed two doctors as agents of the court to consent and carry out the surgery, but the parents would be agents of the court for "all other purposes".
There was an option for the family's lawyer, Sue Grey, to apply for a stay and pursue an appeals process.
However, this morning she said an appeal would not be filed.
"It appears the hospital is planning the operation today or tomorrow. They have security guards preventing [the baby] from leaving the ward," Grey said.
"We have concluded that the Government cannot afford anything to go wrong for [the baby] as the world is watching. [The baby] is likely to get the best possible care with the best safest blood.
"We have considered an appeal and are very grateful for those who have generously shared their expertise on this.
"Our conclusion is that there is no time to appeal due to the court giving its decision at close of business yesterday, and the complex process where a stay is required."
The outcome has been met with shock from the hundreds of supporters, many who have been protesting outside the court this week, outraged at what they perceived as "state control".
There has been a substantial campaign to support the parents by alternative media organisations, including one which put the baby's face on the side of a large billboard. It was towed to different events all over New Zealand (I saw it in Te Kuiti on Sunday, for example). It was also placed outside of the court during this week's hearing, behind a "sheriff's" van, featuring pictures of politicians locked behind bars.
Statutory suppression orders prevent any report that identifies the baby or any details that might identify them.
The news has quickly gone around the world too.
The parents have also been interviewed on alternative media websites overseas, including Infowars, hosted by conspiracy theorist Alex Jones.
In that interview Jones claimed the Clintons – Hillary Clinton and her husband Bill Clinton – had been poisoning the blood supply with HIV from a company in Canada. That appeared to reference this story from 1999.
Jones also compared government responses around the world to Covid-19 to Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia.
Back here, what played out both inside and outside court appeared to be a clash of realities.
"We rarely have cases like this but when we do, this is what you would expect in terms of an outcome," Josephine Johnston, an expert in bioethics, said.
"I feel for these parents, they have a sick baby, it is a very frightening situation for anyone to be in," she said.
"And then to have a lot of people around the world coming at them with these ideas about how dangerous the blood of vaccinated donors is, is going to make them even more frightened. I feel like they and the healthcare providers involved - they are the ones bearing the brunt of this clash between medical science and these alternative ideas."
She described seeing similar anti-government, anti-health system messaging in the US, where she lived before moving to New Zealand two years ago.
She also believes that some people do have reasons – good and bad – to mistrust elements of the health system.
"I honestly think some of that has been capitalised by people who see it as an opportunity to grow their own power as crusaders or leaders of this particular anti-vaccine movement," she said.
"We saw that in February with the protests at Parliament and we are seeing it now.
"It's not surprising but it's extremely sad."
That presents a challenge for the future as the chasm between the views of these groups and medical professionals needs to be bridged.
"There is research happening to make some progress on how to combat misinformation and I think everyone has a role to play," Johnston said.
"Patience and empathy and loving correction of the record is one of the only things that can chip away at these feelings – people need to be heard so shutting them down won't be very helpful."
A lot of work clearly needs to be done.
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