North Carolina family of unvaccinated 14-year-old search for a medical center for kidney transplant

A North Carolina family is asking for help after their 14-year-old adopted daughter was denied a kidney transplant by Duke University Hospital because she was not vaccinated against COVID-19.

Yulia Hicks was fostered by Lee and Chrissy Hicks in January 2021 from the Ukraine. They knew that she had a rare genetic kidney disease, Loken major syndrome, which would eventually mean that she would need a transplant.

However, on November 11, they were told that she was not eligible for the Duke waiting list because she had not been vaccinated against COVID.

His parents said he had been infected before, but the hospital said that wasn’t enough and that CDC guidelines call for vaccinations for transplant patients.

“They said the CDC recommendation had been updated at the end of October, and they had to follow the recommendation, and if she didn’t get the vaccine, she wouldn’t get a transplant at Duke,” Chrissy Hicks said, speaking to Tucker Carlson on Friday for the night.

Carlson called the hospital’s decision “obviously unreasonable and terribly cruel.”

Chrissy Hicks recorded the phone call, in which the hospital explained why Yulia was denied the transplant.

‘I can’t demand you do anything,’ says a woman. I can recommend these things.

But if you don’t follow our recommendations, Yulia can’t be a candidate for a transplant here.

‘Based on number five, which is persistent non-compliance with dialysis medical treatment or medical recommendations, and also number 10, which is medical risk factors that make surgery unsafe.

“And not being vaccinated with the CDC-recommended vaccines, based on your age, is part of that.”

When the Hickses, devout Roman Catholics who have 11 children, three of them adopted, argued that Yulia had already had COVID and was therefore protected, hospital staff responded.

“The virus has continued to mutate,” a man tells them.

“So natural immunity is not as good as if you had natural immunity, other than vaccination.”

Chrissy Hicks told Carlson that the hospital staff were unsympathetic and had not even expressed condolences for not being able to help Yulia.

The mother of 11 said they hoped another medical center would agree to help Yulia

“There is no sympathy from any of them,” he said.

“It’s just arming ourselves strong: give him the vaccine and you’ll get the transplant.”

Carlson said it was “so evil it’s hard to stomach.”

The North Carolina mother said they have hired a lawyer, but in the meantime they are waiting “for a medical center to come forward and tell us that they will do the transplant without the vaccine.”

We have already received a great deal of help. We are very grateful for the people who have stepped up,” he said.

‘This boils down to: this is bigger than Yulia, so many families in the situation like Yulia, and we want to help other families.

There has been a line drawn in the sand.

“If we don’t stand up for our medical freedoms now, we won’t be able to do it soon.”

Yulia’s case is not isolated.

Earlier this year, a 31-year-old Boston man, DJ Ferguson, was denied a heart transplant because he refused to be vaccinated against COVID.

Several weeks later, a North Carolina man, Chad Carswell, 38, said he would rather die than be forced to receive the COVID vaccine in order to receive the kidney transplant he needed.

Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist, the hospital where Carswell expected to receive his transplant, declined to comment on his case, but a spokeswoman said the hospital’s vaccine policy is meant to protect transplant patients, who are at high risk of getting sick. severely from COVID.

Last year, the Cleveland Clinic and University of Colorado hospitals refused to perform organ transplants on recipients who had not been vaccinated.

Individual centers set their own policies, but there are some common practices. Hospitals will generally require transplant candidates to abstain from smoking, and transplant recipients are usually required to undergo psychosocial evaluations.

They often have to get vaccinated against hepatitis B, commit to getting a yearly flu shot, and prove they are immune to measles.