A hospital in Washington state has reportedly removed several sick patients from its transplant waitlist over their decision not to receive a vaccination against COVID-19.
Jason Rantz, a conservative talk radio host based in Seattle, reported Tuesday that the University of Washington Medical Center has booted “several patients” from its organ transplant list over the last several months.
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Hospital administrators reportedly referenced an unofficial policy stating transplant recipients must be vaccinated against the novel coronavirus.
One patient at the hospital, 41-year-old Derek Kovick, told Rantz about the alleged policy. Patient Sam Allen, 64, corroborated Kovick’s claim.
Allen, who has been on the transplant list for years, suffers from a litany of medical conditions. He was reportedly told in June he had been removed from the heart transplant list.
“The cardiologist called me and we had a discussion,” Allen told Rantz. “And he informed me that, ‘Well, you’re going to have to get a vaccination to get a transplant.’ And I saw, ‘Well, that’s news to me. And nobody’s ever told me that before.’ And he said, ‘Yeah, that’s our policy.’”
The patient, though, told his doctor he would not get inoculated.
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A few days later, Allen said he received a letter dated June 7, informing he his name had been pulled from the United Network for Organ Sharing waiting list.
“Your name has been removed from the waitlist at the University of Washington Medical Center,” the letter stated. “This was done in a follow-up to your recent conversation with providers regarding the heart transplant selection committee’s concerns about compliance with COVID-19-related policies and recommendations.”
“We can re-assess you for reinstatement on the waiting list, should the compliance concerns resolve in the future or, if you wish, refer you to another center for evaluation in the meantime,” the letter continued.
Allen, for his part, responded to UW Medicine and the Cardiac Transplant/Advanced Heart Failure Therapies Selection Committee, which signed the letter.
He told the committee he has declined to take a COVID-19 vaccine because, as a patient with a history of “heart failure,” he is concerned about uncommon side effects that could “cause cardiac problems.”
If he doesn’t receive a heart transplant, Allen said it “absolutely will lead to my death.”
When asked by Rantz about the unofficial policy, a spokesperson for the hospital, Susan Gregg, said physicians “make a determination regarding vaccine recommendations and requirements, including COVID-19 vaccination, based on the risk factors of the individual patient and degree of immunosuppression they will experience.”
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