There are more than 100,000 people currently on the hospital’s waitlist
A Boston man has been denied a heart transplant and taken off the current waiting list due to being unvaccinated.
DJ Ferguson, 31, was admitted to Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Longwood Medical and Academic Area of Boston, Massachusetts over Thanksgiving weekend in 2021 and was said to be at the front of the queue for a new heart.
As per his GoFundMe page, Ferguson suffers from a hereditary heart issue that causes his lungs to fill with blood and fluid and his father David says he was next in line for a new heart until his vaccination status became an issue.
A 31-year-old man was denied a heart transplant by a Boston hospital because he didn’t get a Covid vaccine.
The hospital says the vaccine is a requirement for transplant candidates “in order to create the best chance for a successful operation.”@DashaBurns spoke to his mother. pic.twitter.com/MFrcTsNuhq
— Top Story with Tom Llamas (@TopStoryNBC) January 26, 2022
Speaking to the likes of CBS, his dad says the vaccine goes against his “basic principles, he doesn’t believe in it.” He was said to be wary of cardiac inflammation – a potential albeit rare and temporary side effect of the vaccine listed by the CDC – that would prove dangerous for some with a weak heart like his.
While not entirely down to him being unvaccinated, the hospital told news outlets, “Given the shortage of available organs, we do everything we can to ensure that a patient who receives a transplanted organ has the greatest chance of survival.”
There are currently more than 100,000 people on the hospital’s waitlist for organs and although the father of two (expecting a third) has been denied a heart transplant, most otherwise viable candidates have to wait more than five years for the chance to receive one.
In a mass general statement, they added: “The Covid-19 vaccine, and lifestyle behaviours for transplant candidates to create both the best chance for a successful operation and to optimise the patient’s survival after transplantation, given that their immune system is drastically suppressed”.
However, Ferguson’s family now suggest he is too weak to be transferred to a different hospital that might put him on their transplant list and is “running out of time”.
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