UCHealth denies kidney transplant to unvaccinated woman in stage 5 renal failure

[Demovictory9]

UCHealth denies kidney transplant to unvaccinated woman in stage 5 renal failure


A Colorado woman with stage 5 renal failure is scrambling to find a new hospital to perform a kidney transplant after a health system in the state denied the transplant due to her and her donor being unvaccinated against the coronavirus.


"Here I am, willing to be a direct donor to her. It does not affect any other patient on the transplant list," Jaimee Fougner, Leilani Lutali’s kidney donor, told CBS4. "How can I sit here and allow them to murder my friend when I’ve got a perfectly good kidney and can save her life?"

Lutali said she received a letter from Colorado health system UCHealth at the end of September explaining that she and Fougner have 30 days to begin the vaccine process. They would be removed from the kidney transplant list if they refuse the shots.


"I said I’ll sign a medical waiver. I have to sign a waiver anyway for the transplant itself, releasing them from anything that could possibly go wrong," said Lutali. "It’s surgery, it’s invasive. I sign a waiver for my life. I’m not sure why I can’t sign a waiver for the COVID shot."

In August, Lutali said the hospital told her that the vaccine would not be a prerequisite to get the surgery.

"At the end of August, they confirmed that there was no COVID shot needed at that time," Lutali told CBS4. "Fast forward to Sept. 28. That’s when I found out. Jamie learned they have this policy around the COVID shot for both for the donor and the recipient."


Lutali met Fougner 10 months ago at a Bible study. Lutali said she has not received the vaccine because there are too many unknowns yet, while Fougner has not gotten the shot over religious reasons.


https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/uchealth-denies-kidney-transplant-to-unvaccinated-woman-in-stage-5-renal-failure/ar-AAPcl1a?ocid=msedgntp

[nolabear]

1. I disagree with this. I want people to vaccinate but damn.

Not saving a life when there’s no risk in so doing? That’s unethical.

[marybourg]

12. There is a risk. Several.

One is that being unvaccinated, she has a good chance of dying, destroying the kidney that could have gone to a vaccinated person with a greater chance of living. Getting an organ transplant also requires immunosuppressive drugs for life, thus greatly increasing the chances of contracting coved19. Many other risks to her and others also.

[markie]

13. the kidney will

save a life, just not hers an available organ does not go to someone who engages in risky behavior

[stopdiggin]

23. this is not an open donor situation

donation is specific to the recipient, and the kidney does not go to 'the next available.'

(I still think that the hospital/health system has ample reason to enforce their rule)

[markie]

28. oh

guess I should read better

[Hav]

14. From the article: 20 to more than 30% mortality rate

for transplant recipients who get Covid. It's insane to not at least get vaccinated. It's also unethical to waste resources for a selfish idiot and to bring someone into a situation of being that compromised.

[ecstatic]

18. I agree with you. They went too far

It's not as if the vaccine provides 100% protection against catching or spreading covid. This was a petty and spiteful move on UCHealth's part.

[Hav]

22. Vaccines don't have to offer 100% protection

If you are that compromised that the mortality rate is 30% if you catch Covid, don't you think that even a protection of 50% would be a big help?

[yardwork]

49. I disagree. The petty and spiteful behavior is among those who refuse vaccinations.

[Sgent]

20. COVID

is a deadly illness to both the donor and recipient of a transplant and the chance of COVID while in recovery is even higher. Hospitals and surgeons get judged and paid based on mortality rates, and they don't want to jeopardize it. They probably are required to get a flu shot as well.

[nolabear]

24. Thanks. Lots to mull. Just saw a news story on it.

Yes, other vaccines required and people are asked to stop risky behaviors like drinking as well. I’m rethinking my response although it seems dreadful. I guess hard choices always have to be made though.

[Mariana]

26. I don't know where you get the idea there's no risk.

The donor might have serious complications from the surgery. The procedure might also place the donor at much greater risk of dying from a Covid infection.

[nolabear]

27. Look above your post. I see everyone's point.

[USALiberal]

29. Do more research! Nt

[lagomorph777]

51. Risk the lives of everybody who works on her, AND waste the kidney?

No, she could have easily chosen to save her own life.

Why go to the massive effort (in a time of medical scarcity) to put in a kidney, if she has demonstrated she won't take care of it?

[SoCalDavidS]

2. Tough Choice There

I suppose since it doesn't matter if the friend dies from Covid, it also doesn't matter if they die from kidney failure.

Thoughts & Prayers (TM).

[mcar]

3. Lots of vaccinated people need a kidney

If she's so against science, why is she even seeking out such an action?

[Ms. Toad]

4. You have to meet eligibilty requirements even if you have your own donor.

Part of satisfying those requirements is demonstrating a willingness to comply with doctor's requirements - since caring for someone else's organ is a lot more complex than caring for your own.

In addition, when you take an organ from a healthy donor, you are putting their life at risk. It would be medically unethical for doctors to risk the life of a donor if the recipient does not not demonstrate a resasonable likelihood of being able to care for the organ. See above.

Not sure about the COVID shot for the donor - other than the possibility that the donor would contract COVID during the multiple medical visits associated with the transplant process.

[walkingman]

6. My friend who lived in Seattle was denied a liver transplant years ago

because he refused to stop smoking weed. It was his choice and in his case a fatal one.

I have little sympathy for people that are so hard-headed that they put their and others lives at risk.

We all have to live or die based upon our life's choices.

[Ms. Toad]

8. Yup. They are easing up a bit on marijuana in some places.

Being willing to stop for a transplant definitely tests abilty to comply with doctors orders. There have been suggestions in the past that some of the components are risky to transplant recipients (generally) and specifically to liver recipients (my strongest familiarity - I have a daughter who is likely to need one). (But it's hard to gather solid data on an illegal substance).

[MLAA]

30. I thought most hospitals are requiring vaccinations for elective surgeries.

Maybe they are considering his donating a kidney elective surgery.

[Ms. Toad]

32. Definitely elective, for the donor.

I hadn't heard of that requirement (and I don't find it on a quick search). There are places where electives surgeries are restricted or cancelled because of COVID. I only found one article, behind a paywall, that looked like it might be talking about vaccination for elective surgeries.

[dixiechiken1]

5. Get vaccinated or die...

Seems like a pretty simple choice to me.

"I said I’ll sign a medical waiver. I have to sign a waiver anyway for the transplant itself, releasing them from anything that could possibly go wrong," said Lutali. "It’s surgery, it’s invasive. I sign a waiver for my life. I’m not sure why I can’t sign a waiver for the COVID shot."

Seriously?!? Because you don't get to sign a waiver for everyone else's life who comes in contact with you, moron. God, I HATE these people.

[Haggard Celine]

7. What if they had told her she had to have a hepatitis shot?

Bet she would have had it a long time ago. No, she's the one playing politics with her own life. The transplant list is simply applying the same rules to her that they are for everyone else. She's putting herself out there as a potential martyr, so let her her. Let her stupid ass die for Trump. That's all this is.

[Maru Kitteh]

9. Well. Now she has the freedom to die for "religious" reasons.

My ass in a handbasket.

[hatrack]

10. Fine . . . . . liver transplant prospects aren't allowed to drink, either

But hey, muh rights!!!!

[keithbvadu2]

11. Has she analyzed all the other medicines to be used to pass her religious beliefs?

Has she analyzed all the other medicines to be used to pass her religious beliefs?

[temporary311]

19. Yeah, I'd bet an imaginary dollar

that some of the other medications she would have to take used stem cells at some point in their development or testing.

[obamanut2012]

47. Tylenol, Tums, Preparation H

And also albuterol, aspirin, ibuprofen, Pepto Bismol, Lipitor, Senokot, Motrin, Maalox, Ex-Lax, Benadryl, Sudafed, Claritin, Prilosec, and Zoloft.

Most of these are highly-used OTC meds.

[Hekate]

17. Yes

[Hekate]

16. Lung or heart transplant patients have to give up smoking, period. Requirements are not a new thing...

… for transplant patients, and it is not, as her Bible-study pal calls it, “murder.”

It’s hugely expensive. There’s a whole team involved — not just a doctor and a nurse. Organ transplantation is highly complex, involves a team to do the surgery, a team to do the after-care and rehab, and medical care and medication the rest of one’s life. Organs are scarce — there is always a waiting list and people who can’t discipline themselves fall right off the list.

These two morons can go back to praying.

[spinbaby]

21. I have a friend who had a heart transplant

Admittedly, a heart transplant is a bigger deal than a kidney transplant, but she had a long list of requirements that included vaccinations.

[Marthe48]

25. My best friend got a kidney transplant in 2018

She has gotten the Covid vaccine. She has to go out on her own and shop, so since surgery, she always bundles up, with a mask and gloves. She is aware of caring for her kidney and is grateful for the better health she is enjoying.

Previous to her transplant, every aspect of her health was scrutinized and all potential problems dealt with. We have learned that getting a transplant replaces one set of health care protocols (dialysis) with another (maintaining a transplanted organ). Both are hard, but she doesn't miss a single thing about dialysis. She is very compliant with her team of doctors.

Aside from getting a vaccine to protect your own health, there are whole floors in hospitals dedicated to transplant care. The people in the news story need to get vaccinated. There are other patients in the hospital beds, seeing their teams for followup care, mingling with the caretakers and drivers, the hospital service suppport, such as valets, gift shop and restaurant employees and so on. Cleveland Clinic is like a small city, with thousands of people in and out every day. All of those people potentially come in contact with the unvaccinated. I was my friend's driver and caretaker, and spent a lot of time in the clinic as she went through the process of surgery and recovery. I probably came into contact with 20-40 people any time we visited, which at first was 3 times a week. So the 'me only' attitude of the people involved in this transplant is distasteful.

[Hortensis]

41. That last is yet another significant point to add to the list to think about.

The criteria are not only about the transplant individual but the individual as part of the transplant community.

[MLAA]

31. I donated a kidney to my mom.

It gave her 10 more years. She was on many drugs that needed to be taken on schedule throughout the day and further followed guidance for eating correctly to maintain a list of indicators that were checked regularly through blood tests.
The wan won’t follow directors advice on covid vaccine it indicates she may not follow their advice caring for the kidney. The surgery and follow ups use a lot of medical resources.

[lostnfound]

35. That is so beautiful it made me cry.

[MLAA]

58. Thank you for your kind words

[Marthe48]

50. You are a hero!

My friend has the same regime

[RockCreek]

33. Good for UC Health n/t

[LetMyPeopleVote]

34. Hospital system says it will deny transplants to the unvaccinated in 'almost all situations'

Giving a good transplant organ to idiots who are too stupid to be vaccinated is a waste of good and rare organ. Low IQ TFG supporters who are unvaccinated should not be on any transplant list. They are going to kill themselves anyway and we do not to waste of good transplant organ

Link to tweet

A Colorado-based health system says it is denying organ transplants to patients not vaccinated against the coronavirus in “almost all situations,” citing studies that show these patients are much more likely to die if they get covid-19.

The policy illustrates the growing costs of being unvaccinated and wades into deeply controversial territory — the use of immunization status to decide who gets limited medical care. The mere idea of prioritizing the vaccinated for rationed health resources has drawn intense backlash, as overwhelmingly unvaccinated covid-19 patients push some hospitals to adopt “crisis standards of care,” in which health systems can prioritize patients for scarce resources based largely on their likelihood of survival.

UCHealth’s rules for transplants entered the spotlight Tuesday when Colorado state Rep. Tim Geitner (R) said it denied a kidney transplant to a Colorado Springs woman because she was not vaccinated against the coronavirus. Calling the decision “disgusting” and discriminatory, Geitner shared a letter that he said the patient received last week from UCHealth’s transplant center at the University of Colorado’s Anschutz Medical Campus in the city of Aurora.

The letter said the woman would be “inactivated” on a kidney transplant waiting list and had 30 days to start coronavirus vaccination. If she refused to be vaccinated, it said, she would be removed.

UCHealth declined to discuss particular patients because of federal privacy laws, and The Washington Post could not independently verify the woman’s story. But the health system confirmed Tuesday that nearly all of its transplant recipients and organ donors must get vaccinated against the coronavirus, in addition to other vaccinations and health requirements. A spokesman, Dan Weaver, said that other transplant centers in the United States have similar policies or are transitioning to them.

[Celerity]

36. Good. NT

[MissMillie]

38. I am an absolutist on this: health care is a human right.(n/t)

.

[LisaL]

39. Basic health care, sure.

I don't think someone has a right to an organ transplant. Once someone gets a transplanted organ, they have to follow doctor's instructions, or the organ will be rejected.
And this woman can't even follow a most basic instruction, get vaccinated.

[MissMillie]

40. fair enough.

I just see a slippery slope on this.

Would it be okay to deny a kidney transplant if a patient fails to lose 20 lbs.?

This is not exactly a situation where the kidney is being given to someone else on the list. Specific donor giving to a specific recipient.

And yes, I do understand we're in a pandemic, so that the risk of being unvaccinated is high.

[LisaL]

42. People are denied organ transplants for all kinds of reasons.

If extra weight meant the surgery won't be successful then transplant could be denied for that.

[Hortensis]

43. Pretty sure most transplant professionals believe the life they're

in the strange position of allocating is a human right. Every possible moral question has always been a huge issue.

In a world without enough organs available when and where needed, they had to develop an objective system for deciding who gets them. Mercifully (literally!) and ethically, of course, the criteria exclude personal notions about who "deserves" to live, and who does not.

[LisaL]

44. You have a right to get somebody else's organ into you?

NT

[Hortensis]

45. Of course that question's been argued from all possible directions,

and society has arrived at generally accepted answers.

[MissMillie]

46. The donor is donating to a specific recipient here, right?

The kidney is not going to the next in line... right?

[Hortensis]

48. Yes, and that did grab my notice too. I immediately wondered

what the rationale was for denying, but not that one exists.

That many transplant systems have made this decision makes me pretty sure they're not breaking any new ground here but instead following very carefully researched and thought out, ethics and science-based guidelines.

Also that if someone who strongly disagreed with this decision on this forum were magically transplanted to a decision making position, he or she would be required to follow guidelines that lead to the same conclusion.

[Marthe48]

52. A recipient can find a donor

My friend even asked a cop who stopped her on the way to dialysis if he'd test to see if he was compatible. lol

If you find someone willing to donate, and they don't match, they could donate to someone else, and that would help you move up the list. Sort of a trade-off. The waiting lists are different in each state, some are 1 year os so, others are up to 5 years. The transplant network is getting better, but still not enough communication.

My friend's transplant was a cadaver kindey. At the time and still now, I'd like to see them called angel kidneys. My friend was so sick, and is transformed.

[Marthe48]

53. My cousin's sister-in-law died years ago

She was an organ donor and helped many people with her generousity. The hospital where her organs were used have an annual gathering where donor families can meet transplant recipients. My cousin and his wife got friendly with one of the recipients, even meeting other times beside the annual event. The recipient got Covid last year, and they died. They had been the longest surving recipient from that hospital. I felt really bad when my cousin told me.

[lagomorph777]

55. Case in point: a recipient who died of COVID.

Of course I can make no guesses as to whether they were vaccinated, masked, etc. But recipients are very vulnerable to COVID, and a potential recipient who refuses to recognize that is in grave danger. It would be unethical to place an idiot like that at huge risk by giving them the transplant.

[Marthe48]

56. They got it before the vaccine was available

Unfortunately

[lagomorph777]

57. Yes, that is tragic.

I certainly don't mean to cast any aspersions on that person; I assume they were decent and responsible - but vulnerable to COVID.

[Marthe48]

59. No prob

It is Ohio

[lagomorph777]

54. Transplant recipients always have to meet a long list of requirements, including

vaccinations. They are far more susceptible to infectious diseases, because they will be on powerful immunosuppressants for life. They have to demonstrate they are willing to take care of their new, and extremely precious organ.

For doctors not to enforce these ethics rules would be highly unethical.