The health system at the University of Colorado recently announced that any patients waiting for an organ transplant must be vaccinated in order to receive one.
UCHealth gave a statement to KDVR saying “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”.
They also noted that “Some U.S. transplant centers already have this requirement in place, and others are making this change in policy now”.
One patient, Leilani Lutali, is on the list for a kidney transplant at UCHealth. She was moved to the inactive status when she did not get vaccinated. Jamie Fougner, Lutali’s possible donor, is also unvaccinated and is not able to donate a kidney anymore. KDVR reported that both women have a religious reason for not getting vaccinated.
Lutali said ‘Both from a religious standpoint, and from doing some reading, I’m not certain that this is the right way to go”. “The shot’s relatively new, and as a consumer, I’m not an early adopter, I wait and see what’s going on. I feel like I’m being coerced into not being able to wait and see, and that I have to take the shot if I want this life-saving transplant”, she added.
According to CBS4, Fougner asked “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 had gotten a letter from UCHealth saying she needed to get the vaccine. “If your decision is to refuse COVID vaccination you will be removed from the kidney transplant list”, it read.
The hospital said patients who receive transplants are at a greater risk and explained that “a living donor could pass COVID-19 infection on to an organ recipient even if they initially test negative for the disease, putting the patient’s life at risk”.
Lutali and Fougner could not find another hospital in Colorado that would take them unvaccinated, so they are now looking to get the procedure done in another state.