Hospitals in America Reject Heart Transplant Surgery for Anti-vaccine Patients

BOSTON, KOMPAS.com – A hospital in the United States refuses to perform heart transplant to a patient who does not want to be vaccinated against Covid-19.

DJ Ferguson, 31, desperately needs a new heart. But Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, US, removed her from the operation list, her father, David Ferguson, said.

David says, Covid-19 vaccine against his son’s basic tenets, and he didn’t believe it.

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Meanwhile, the hospital said that the decisions taken were in accordance with the established policies.

Brigham and Women’s Hospital told BBC in a statement, “Given the limitations of available organs, we are doing everything we can to ensure that patients who receive organ transplants have the greatest chance of survival.”

A spokeswoman said the hospital requires a Covid-19 vaccine, and healthy living behaviors for transplant candidates to create the best chance of a successful surgery and optimize patient survival after transplantation, given that the patient’s immune system is drastically suppressed.

The hospital’s cautious statement may imply other factors beyond the patient’s unvaccinated status as ineligibility, but the hospital declined to go into specifics, citing patient privacy.

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The hospital added that most of the 100,000 people on organ transplant waiting lists will not have surgery within five years because of a shortage of available organs.

Ferguson has been in hospital since November 26, 2021. She suffers from a hereditary heart problem that causes her lungs to fill with blood and fluid, according to GoFundMe, the fundraising organizer.

GoFundMe said Ferguson was concerned he could develop heart inflammation – a potential side effect of a coronavirus vaccination that the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says is rare and temporary – and that it might prove dangerous given his weak heart condition.

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