QUEENSLAND, Australia (LifeSiteNews) – Australia’s third largest state is denying organ transplants to patients who refuse COVID vaccination.
The Queensland department of health said in a statement Monday that patients must have “a minimum requirement of two doses of an approved COVID-19 vaccine prior to receiving a kidney, lung or heart transplant.”
“Queensland follows national and international practices regarding transplantation and vaccination protocols,” Queensland Health said.
“A recipient is highly immunosuppressed post-transplant, which is why it’s incredibly important for the person to be vaccinated prior to transplant,” the department added. “That is why the Queensland Kidney Transplant Service has endorsed a minimum requirement of two doses of an approved COVID-19 vaccine prior to receiving a kidney, lung or heart transplant.”
Anyone who declines to get double-jabbed, including for medical reasons, will likely have to wait until the policy is reversed, Australia’s 7News reported. A review of the measure is expected no earlier than next February. Transplant requests for unvaccinated patients will placed “on hold” for the time being.
More than 1,600 people were waiting for an organ transplant at any given time in 2020, according to the Australian Department of Health. “There are also 12,000 people on dialysis, many of whom would benefit from a kidney transplant.”
Australia uses the AstraZeneca, Moderna, and Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccines, which have been linked to tens of thousands of collective deaths and millions of adverse reactions. Around 2,000 Australians have died of COVID since the beginning of last year, including just seven in Queensland.
“I have had every other vaccine including the flu and it’s not been good. I have ended up so sick I had to get someone to look after my son,” Brisbane mother Helen Oberthur told The Courier Mail. “I am not good with vaccinations and feel like I am cornered. I think it is blatant discrimination to deny me a place on a waiting list because of this.”
Tamara McCarthy, whose 18-year-old son now needs to be vaccinated before he can get a kidney transplant, said her son “is scared to have the jabs” due to myocarditis risks.
“Dialysis is allowing him to still live his life as a young man but what if he has a bad reaction? Of course he wants a new kidney. He wants to live a long life but this decision has been devastating. He will have to take his chances with the vaccine,” she said.
“Don’t doctors take an oath to treat people in all circumstances?”
Australia has imposed some of the world’s harshest COVID-19 restrictions and penalties on the unvaccinated. Queensland has moved to ban unvaccinated residents from all restaurants, hotels, concerts, and sports venues, and to mandate vaccination for hospital visits. More than 1,000 people have already been forcibly held in government “quarantine centers” in one Australian territory, and Queensland is in the process of building similar facilities.
Australian pro-freedom group Reignite Democracy Australia has provided legal templates for anyone denied medical treatment due to vaccination status.
Queensland Health confirms organ transplant recipients need to be vaccinated for COVID. We have a legal template that might help. Check it out here | https://t.co/qxs2VY71wT pic.twitter.com/ubhlstIPXD
— Reignite Democracy Australia (@reignitedemaust) December 6, 2021
Unvaccinated Americans have faced similar barriers to organs transplants, including in Colorado, where multiple hospitals have begun to deny care to patients without jabs. Other health care systems requiring COVID-19 vaccination for transplants include UW Medicine in Washington, Ohio’s University Hospitals, and the Cleveland Clinic.