Boston’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital has removed a 31-year-old in need of a heart transplant from the transplant list because he refuses to get vaccinated for COVID-19, his parents say.
Although DJ Ferguson’s family praised the care the 31-year-old – was at the front of the line to receive the organ he desperately needs- has been receiving at the hospital, the situation changed when was removed from the list because is not vaccinated.
As CBS Boston reports, the hospital emphasized its goal to create the best conditions for successful operation and to increases patients’ survival chances after transplantation, stressing its policy is in line with other US transplant programs that require the jab because it fits under the lifestyle behaviors of the candidates.
According to the head of Medical Ethics at NYU Grossman School of Medicine, Dr. Arthur Caplan, inoculation is necessary for transplants since the immune system of the patient’s essentially turned off and even common cold could kill him
Dr. Caplan noted it’s not sensible to distribute scares organs to patients with a poor survival chance due to the infection risks when vaccinated patients have a better chance post-surgery of surviving.
Regardless of the medical and hospital explanations, Ferguson’s family doesn’t agree with the heart transplant COVID vaccination policy and is aggressively pursuing all options, even thinking about transferring him to another hospital, but he’s running out of time and he even may be too weak to move.
The issue of the hospital system denying transplants to unvaccinated patients was exposed back in October by Colorado state Rep. Tim Geitner.
He informed the public of the case in which UCHealth sent a letter to an El Paso County woman – unvaccinated against COVID-19 – who was awaiting a transplant to inform her that the University of Colorado Hospital’s transplant team will place her inactive on the waiting list for non-compliance by not receiving the COVID vaccine.
She was told in the letter that if she fails to begin a vaccination series in 30 days, she will be removed from the kidney transplant list.
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