A Boston hospital is refusing to give his 31-year-old patient a heart transplant because he has not been vaccinated against COVID-19, which considers that it means that the operation is doomed to failure, American television networks broadcast yesterday, Wednesday.
Asked by the French Agency, a spokeswoman for Brigham and Women's Hospital confirmed that the vaccine against COVID-19 considered "mandatory" for all candidate organ recipients.
The patient's father, David Ferguson, spoke to CNN and ABC about his child's fight against "death", stressing that he had reached "the limits of his strength".
Thirty-year-old, who was scheduled to undergo heart transplant surgery at Boston Hospital, refuses to be vaccinated against COVID-19. "He is fundamentally opposed to his principles, he does not believe in it," the father explained.
They removed him from the list
And as Brigham and Women's Hospital "implements this policy (…) they removed him from the list" of patients who will receive transplants, he added in despair.
In a written statement, sent to the French Agency, the Boston Nursing Institution explains that it "considers several vaccines recommended by health authorities, including the vaccine against COVID-19To proceed with such operations.
Vaccination, together with "a way of life", he explained, creates for the candidate recipient "the best conditions for a successful operation and (…) the patient's survival after the transplant, especially because the immune system is severely weakened".
How do they justify it
For Dr. Arthur Kaplan of New York University, cited by CBS, "When any transplant is done, the immune system goes into remission. "COVID can kill."
Therefore, if they have not been vaccinated, "patients are off the waiting list" for transplants, Boston hospital's son David Ferguson explained.
The latter stated that he respects the "choice" of his son and is considering the possibility of transferring him to another hospital, but stresses that "time is pressing" for the already weakened patient.
The US, where only 62% have been fully vaccinated against it COVID-19, due to the political dimension of the issue, count to this stage some 872.000 deaths due to COVID-19 out of a total of almost 60 million SARS-CoV-2 cases.
Source: RES-EAP