DJ Ferguson, a 31-year old father of two, (almost three), was next in line for a heart transplant. Not any more.
The Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston stated unequivocally that transplant patients who haven’t had the vaccine won’t get the organs they need.
The hospital released a statement regarding Ferguson.
And like many other transplant programs in the United States, the COVID-19 vaccine is one of several vaccines and lifestyle behaviors required for transplant candidates in the Mass General Brigham system in order to create both the best chance for a successful operation and also the patient’s survival after transplantation.
Ferguson’s dad, David Ferguson, told reporters that his son doesn’t believe in the vaccine.
“It’s kind of against his basic principles, he doesn’t believe in it,” David Ferguson told reporters. “It’s a policy they are enforcing and so because he won’t get the shot, they took him off the list of a heart transplant.”
Patient refused heart transplant because he is unvaccinated
You will submit or you will die. https://t.co/qMoK3pQOUT
— John Cardillo (@johncardillo) January 25, 2022
Dr. Arthur Caplan, head of medical ethics at New York University Grossman School of Medicine, put it succinctly.
“The flu could kill you, a cold could kill you, COVID could kill you,” Caplan declared. “The organs are scarce, we are not going to distribute them to someone who has a poor chance of living when others who are vaccinated have a better chance post-surgery of surviving.”
If organs are scarce, why are hospitals now demanding that donors get vaccinated too?
Increasingly, hospitals not only insist that transplant patients get vaccinated, but they also want organ donors to bend their knees and raise their sleeves as well.
Mike Ganim, 52, was days away from a life-saving kidney transplant. He is vaccinated, his donor was not. That wasn’t a problem until it suddenly was.
“Living donation for organ transplantation has been a life-saving treatment, but it is not without risks to the donor. For the living donor, preventing COVID-19 infection around the time of a surgical operation is crucial,” Ganim’s hospital said in a statement.
This is an odd statement from a hospital considering we’ve known for some time that the vaccine can not keep people from catching or transmitting the virus. Also, what happened to “My organs, my choice”? Shouldn’t we be allowed to donate an organ to a loved one?
FACT-O-RAMA! Israel, the most vaccinated country in the world, has seen a wild surge in COVID cases amongst the vaccinated since last year.
A healthcare system in Colorado recently stated that donor recipients and donors alike need to be vaccinated. Leilani Lutali has stage 5 renal failure. She was on a waiting list for a new kidney that would save her life. She found a donor. Neither of them is vaccinated. Suddenly, the rules changed and Lutali was listed as “inactive” on the waiting list.
UCHealth denies life saving treatment – kidney transplant – to El Paso County resident. See my FB live post @timgeitnercolorado pic.twitter.com/Z2r8D2VY4m
— Tim Geitner (@tgeitner) October 5, 2021
It’s all starting to seem a little too “death panelish” to me.
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