Tanner Donaldson, a 9-year-old boy with stage 4 chronic kidney disease, was born with a rare birth defect causing irreversible kidney damage. Tanner’s father, Dane Donaldson, is a suitable live kidney donor, but due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Cleveland Clinic Children’s Hospital has refused to conduct the transplant surgery because Dane is not vaccinated against the coronavirus.
The hospital has a policy that requires all organ donors to be fully vaccinated to minimize complications during and after surgery. Dane questioned the hospital’s hypocrisy, pointing out that deceased organ donors are not required to be vaccinated. He even offered to sign a waiver freeing the hospital from liability.
But the hospital still rejected him.
In April, the Epoch Times reached out to the hospital for an explanation. “Individuals who are actively infected with COVID-19 have a much higher rate of complications during and after surgery, even if the infection is asymptomatic,” the hospital responded.
Dane opposes the vaccine for religious reasons. But he has also been hesitant “because he has seen a rising number of clients get critically ill after receiving it,” according to the news outlet.
The hospital acknowledged that live donors are the best for kidney transplants but said they are “not without risks.”
“We continually strive to minimize risk to our living donors, and vaccination is an important component to ensure the safest approach and optimal outcomes for donors,” the hospital asserted.
Dane Donaldson indicated that he and his wife are trying to find another hospital to perform the operation.
This is one of several stories in which people have been unable to donate their organs because of faulty COVID policies. There is no telling how many people have perished because hospitals are more concerned with making sure people are vaccinated than actually saving lives.
Denying life-saving medical treatments to individuals based on their vaccination status is ethically wrong for several reasons. Firstly, it goes against the fundamental principle of medical ethics, which is to prioritize the well-being and best interests of the patient. In these cases, the patients in need of organ transplants are being denied potentially life-saving procedures solely because their potential donors are unvaccinated.
Even worse, there seems to be no real evidence that an unvaccinated donor would place people like Donaldson in more peril than the ailment they are suffering from. This decision disregards the urgent medical needs of the patients and places a higher priority on vaccination status rather than the health and lives of individuals.
https://redstate.com/jeffc/2023/05/12/9-year-old-boys-life-hangs-in-the-balance-denied-transplant-over-vaccination-status-n744774