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jews: medication

In general, few issues should arise when prescribing medicines for Jewish people. Reform and Liberal Jews will not object to taking medication on the Sabbath, and will accept non-kosher medication if their condition is serious. If possible, schedule operations, tests and other procedures for non-holiday and non-Sabbath days, but if the condition is life threatening, all other considerations are overruled.

When caring for more Orthodox Jewish patients, a stricter interpretation of the Torah is applied, increasing the possibility of conflict arising. For example, all medications must be kosher, which means they cannot contain pig products. Unless life is threatened absolutely, Orthodox Jews will not be happy to have a test, procedure, operation or even appointment scheduled on the Sabbath or certain holidays. Some ultra-Orthodox Jews may not even be happy with taking or preparing medication on the Sabbath.

However, with a little thought it should be possible to balance both the halakhic requirements of the patient and their healthcare needs:

  • If a patient is meant to be fasting because of a holiday, then consider injecting their medication rather than administering a pill or tablet.
  • If someone needs to take medicine every day, encourage them to prepare the required dose before the Sabbath starts rather than during the Sabbath (technically, preparing medication is work and so breaks a fundamental Sabbath rule). For example, a diabetic who needs to inject insulin could draw up the necessary doses of insulin into one or more syringes, and then keep them in the fridge. These pre-prepared syringes can then be used during the Sabbath.
  • If the drawing of blood is required – such as for blood-glucose testing – then this is permitted reluctantly as a necessity for health. However, if possible, no blood should be shed on the Sabbath. Other emergency tests requiring blood samples to be taken are permitted because of the extreme nature of the situation (blood matching in A&E, for example).
  • Make sure that all medicines are kosher and do not, for example, contain gelatine, blood or pig products.
  • The above rule on kosher medicines may be broken only if there is an immediate danger of death to the patient without treatment; the duty to save life overrules any other considerations.

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