By Victor Omondi
According to a Colorado-based health system, patients who’ve not been vaccinated against the coronavirus are being denied organ transplants in “virtually all instances,” citing research that shows these patients are far more likely to die if they catch Covid-19.
The initiative highlights the rising expenses of not getting vaccinated and ventures into the highly contentious territory: Using immunization status to determine who receives limited medical treatment.
The mere suggestion of prioritizing the vaccinated for scarce health resources has sparked outrage. As a result, many unvaccinated Covid-19 patients now push some hospitals to adopt “crisis standards of care” in which health systems can prioritize patients for scarce resources depending primarily on their likelihood of survival.
UCHealth’s transplant policies came under fire Tuesday after Colorado state Rep. Tim Geitner (R) claimed the hospital declined a kidney transplant to a lady from Colorado Springs because she’d not been inoculated against the coronavirus. Geitner released a letter that he said the patient got last week from UCHealth’s transplant center at the University of Colorado’s Anschutz Medical Campus in Aurora, calling the decision “disgusting” and biased.
According to the letter, the woman would be “inactivated” on the kidney transplant waiting list and given 30 days to begin coronavirus immunization. It stated that if she declined to get vaccinated, she would be removed.
Due to federal privacy regulations, UCHealth refuses to discuss specific patients, and The Washington Post could not independently verify the woman’s story. However, on Tuesday, the health system acknowledged that, in addition to other vaccinations and health requirements, practically all of its transplant recipients and organ donors must get immunized against the coronavirus. Dan Weaver, a spokesman, said other transplant hospitals in the United States have similar standards or are transitioning to them.
Weaver then added that transplant centers across the country might require patients to get additional vaccinations, quit smoking, avoid alcohol, or prove that they will take critical medications to guarantee that patients do well after surgery and do not “reject” organs for which there is fierce competition.
Numerous studies have found that Covid-19 is particularly dangerous for renal transplant recipients. The mortality rate for transplant patients who develop Covid-19 ranges from about 20% to more than 30%, significantly greater than the 1.6 percent fatality rate seen in the United States, Weaver stated.
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