A Colorado health system has announced it will deny transplants to unvaccinated patients, which could potentially put millions of Colorado residents’ lives at risk if the need a transplant to save their lives.
And for one Colorado resident, her decision to not get the COVID vaccine has resulted in her getting rejected for a kidney transplant.
UCHealth, a Colorado-based hospital system affiliated with the liberal University of Colorado, has made the decision to deny organ transplants to unvaccinated patients in “almost all situations.”
“In almost all situations, transplant recipients and living donors at UCHealth are now required to be vaccinated against COVID-19 in addition to meeting other health requirements and receiving additional vaccinations,” a spokesperson for UCHealth said in a statement to The Hill.
The health care system made the decision supposedly to protect patients — saying patients who receive an organ transplant are at “significant risk for COVID-19.”
“This is why it is essential that both the recipient and the living donor be vaccinated and take other precautions prior to undergoing transplant surgery,” the health system’s statement explained. “Surgeries may be postponed until patients take all required precautions in order to give them the best chance at positive outcomes.”
The health system is not giving patients the option to sign a waiver acknowledging the risks associated with organ transplant. And the hospital appears to make no exception for patients who have already had and recovered from COVID who now have significant antibodies that will protect them from the vaccine nor does UC Health admit that vaccinated patients can still become infected with COVID in breakthrough cases.
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A local state representative has highlighted how the decision is already have disastrous effects for patients. The Blaze has more:
The rules made headlines on Tuesday after Rep. Tim Geitner (R-Colo.) announced that the health system denied a kidney transplant to an area woman because she did not receive the COVID-19 vaccine.
In a statement, Geitner called the practice “disgusting.”
He shared a letter that he said the unnamed patient reportedly received last week from the University of Colorado’s Anschutz Medical Campus in Aurora.
In its letter, the health system said:
The transplant team at University of Colorado Hospital has determined that it is necessary to place you inactive on the waiting list. You will be inactivated on the list for non-compliance by not receiving the COVID vaccine. You will have 30 days to begin the vaccination series. If your decision is to refuse COVID vaccination you will be removed from the kidney transplant list. You will continue to accrue waiting time, but you will not receive a kidney offer while listed inactive. Once you complete the COVID vaccination series you will be reactivated on the kidney transplant list pending any other changes in your health condition.
UCHealth denies life saving treatment – kidney transplant – to El Paso County resident. See my FB live post @timgeitnercolorado pic.twitter.com/Z2r8D2VY4m
— Tim Geitner (@tgeitner) October 5, 2021
The politics surrounding COVID and the vaccines has apparently reached such an absurd point in the Rocky Mountain state that now vaccination status could determine whether you live or die. That’s the opposite of health care and is essentially the denial of lifesaving medical treatment that abrogates the right to life.
