News / Society

Boston hospital denies heart transplant to unvaccinated patient

Thursday, 27 January 2022 9:45 AM [ Last Update: Thursday, 27 January 2022 9:45 AM ]

Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America

A hospital in Boston, the United States, has refused to perform a heart transplant on a 31-year-old patient because he was not vaccinated against COVID-19, according to his family.

DJ Ferguson, who was diagnosed with arrhythmia four years ago, was hospitalized in Brigham and Women’s Hospital after suffering heart failure in late November last year, according to his parents. The family said DJ was at the front of the line to receive a transplant but because he hasn’t been vaccinated against the coronavirus, he was told he could not receive a transplant.

“It’s kind of against his basic principles,” David Ferguson says. “It’s a policy they are enforcing and so, because he won’t get the shot, they took him off the list (for) a heart transplant.”

A spokeswoman for Brigham and Women’s Hospital confirmed in a statement that vaccination against the coronavirus is “required” for organ transplant recipients there.

The hospital also requires “lifestyle behaviors for transplant candidates to create both the best chance for a successful operation and to optimize the patient’s survival after transplantation, given that their immune system is drastically suppressed,” the statement read.

“There are currently more than 100,000 candidates on waitlists for organ transplantation and a shortage of available organs — around half of people on waiting lists will not receive an organ within five years,” the hospital said in a statement.

Arthur Caplan, head of medical ethics at New York University Grossman School of Medicine, told CBS News that after any organ transplant, a patient’s immune system is all but shut down and even a common cold cause death.

“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,” said Caplan.

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