Unvaccinated US hospital patient denied heart transplant: Reports

SINGAPORE: A hospital patient in Boston has been denied the chance to receive a heart transplant partly because he is not vaccinated against COVID-19, US media reported on Monday (Jan 24).

DJ Ferguson, 31, has been in hospital since November over a "hereditary heart issue" that fills his lungs with blood and fluid, according to a GoFundMe page set up for him.

According to CBS Boston, Ferguson's family said he was at the front of the line to receive a transplant but is no longer eligible under hospital policy, as he is not vaccinated against COVID-19.

"The COVID-19 vaccine is one of several vaccines and lifestyle behaviours required for transplant candidates in the Mass General Brigham system in order to create both the best chance for a successful operation and also the patient's survival after transplantation," Brigham and Women's Hospital reportedly told CBS Boston.

The hospital requires several vaccines recommended by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention – including the COVID-19, flu and hepatitis B vaccines – for transplant patients, according to its website.

"Patients are not active on the waitlist without this," the hospital said.

The requirements are to optimise survival as the immune system is "drastically suppressed" after transplantation, it said.

"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," the hospital separately told the BBC.

Ferguson's father told CBS Boston that the COVID-19 vaccine is "kind of against his basic principles; he doesn't believe in it".

Brigham and Women's Hospital is a teaching hospital affiliated with Harvard Medical School.

The hospital said on its website that research has shown transplant recipients are at a "much higher risk" of dying from COVID-19 compared to non-transplant patients.

There are more than 100,000 candidates on waitlists for organ transplantation in the US, according to Brigham and Women's Hospital. Around half of them will not receive an organ within five years due to a shortage of available organs.

The hospital added that there is no transplant candidate who is "first on the list" since there are varying levels of priority for allocation of organs.

According to the GoFundMe page, Ferguson is married with two children.