There is an ideological shift that's occurred in healthcare over the most survivable deadly pandemic in human history, and it isn't good.
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.
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.
Here's what the hospital system had to say:
"For transplant patients who contract COVID-19, the mortality rate ranges from about 20% to more than 30%. This shows the extreme risk that COVID-19 poses to transplant recipients after their surgeries."
Oh, wow! A whopping 10% difference! Gasp!
So based on a presumed 10% chance, we'll sentence people to a 100% chance of death or being hooked up to machines for life.
Awesome.
Leilani Lutali, the woman who was denied a kidney, had this to say:
"I had a myriad of emotions, from to confusion to dismay, having been told a month before that I wouldn't be required to take that shot and then fast-forward a month later now I told something different, then I was a month earlier. It left me with a feeling of now what?"
Lutali is friends with her kidney donor, who she met at a Bible study. She doesn't want to get the vaccine because it's still so new with so many unknowns. Despite the personal willingness to donate a kidney and pay money to have it transplanted, the hospital system still won't budge.
I'm not sure, but UCHealth might be referring to this study from England, which looked at 6 hospitals with transplant patients:
One hundred twenty-one [transplant recipients] TRs and 52 waiting list patients (WL) were admitted to hospital with COVID-19. Thirty-six TR died (30%), while 14 WL patients died (27% P = 0.71). There was no difference in rates of admission to ITU or ventilation....
No other comorbidities or demographic factors were associated with mortality, except for age (odds ratio of 4.3 [95% CI 1.8-10.2] for mortality if aged over 60 y) in TR.
Seems like a pretty long shot to say a study like this (or even one looking at rates of infection after vaccination) definitively proves on a scientific or a moral level why you shouldn't perform lifesaving surgery.
A few things to note:
- It's true that transplant patients are more at risk because of the drugs they have to use to keep their immune system from attacking their new organs.
- Natural immunity isn't being mentioned at all... If someone has had Covid and shows signs of robust antibodies, why should they be required to take a vaccine that only blocks one spike protein of said virus?
- How about risk factors such as age, weight, and fitness level? Are you telling me that a 15-year-old with Covid antibodies who needs a new kidney should have the same vax requirement as a 75-year-old man with other comorbidities?
- At you going to start imposing other vaccine and lifestyle requirements on people? After all, being obese is a huge factor in general morbidity stats and obese transplant patients have worse outcomes.
This is the problem with a one-size-fits-all ideological approach. It never works.
