Unvaccinated patient pulled off kidney transplant waitlist says “I will die free”

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW:

• Hospitals remove patients from waiting lists for organ transplants if they are not vaccinated against Covid-19.
• Last week, a man was denied a heart transplant in Boston and this week, Chad Craswell in North Carolina was turned down for a kidney transplant.
• Carswell refused to get vaccinated, saying: “I will die free.”

Hospitals are denying organ transplants to people who are unvaccinated against Covid-19.

Last week, a patient was denied a heart transplant at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. This week, a man in North Carolina was turned down for a kidney transplant because he refused to get a Covid vaccination.

According to officials, the hospitals are following standards set by transplant organizations to give available organs to those with the best chances of survival. The American Society of Transplantation recommends that “all transplant candidates and their household members should have completed the full complement of recommended vaccinations,” including vaccines for COVID-19.

“I will die free,” North Carolina resident Chad Carswell, 38, told Charlotte’s WSOC-TV last week after losing his chance at a kidney transplant at Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist Hospital in Winston-Salem.

“There is not a situation in this world that I’ll get a vaccine,” he told The Washington Post. “If I’m laying on my deathbed, and they tell me, ‘You have a kidney waiting on you if you get this shot,’ I’ll tell them, ’I’ll see you on the other side.’”

Carswell did not reveal why he refused to get the vaccine, other than: “I was born free.”

He’s still receiving dialysis three times a week, but that’s only a temporary solution.

Hospital officials said the policy “follows the current standard of care in the United States, which is to vaccinate all patients on waiting lists or being evaluated for transplant.”

Last week, Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston came under fire after denying a heart transplant to 31-year-old D.J. Ferguson.

Ferguson’s dad said that getting the Covid vaccine was “kinda against his [son’s] basic principles.” His mom said he’s concerned about side effects, like “blood clots.”

“Whatever the risks associated with the shot, they’re lower than for COVID,” Dr. Art Caplan, head of medical ethics at New York University’s Grossman School of Medicine, told NBC News. 

Caplan also said that with the scarcity of available hearts, it’s common policy to require all vaccines, including COVID vaccinations, for transplant patients to give them the best chance of survival.

Source: HuffPost