Jump to content
  • articles
    6,946
  • comments
    80
  • views
    5,193,692

Contributors to this article

About this News

Articles in the news

Urgent polio boosters for London children

All children aged one to nine and living in Greater London will be offered a polio vaccine after the virus was detected in sewage.

The virus, which can cause paralysis, has been found 116 times in London's wastewater since February.

The urgent immunisation campaign will see nearly a million children offered the vaccine - including those already up to date with their jabs.

Parents and carers will be contacted by their GP within the next month.

Polio is seen as a disease of the past in the UK after the whole of Europe was declared polio-free in 2003.

Dr Vanessa Saliba, a consultant epidemiologist at UKHSA, said: "All children aged one to nine years in London need to have a dose of polio vaccine now - whether it's an extra booster dose or just to catch up with their routine vaccinations."

She said the risk for the majority of the population who are vaccinated remains "low" but said it was "vital" parents ensure their children are fully vaccinated.

Read full story

Source: BBC News, 10 August 2022

Read more
 

Urgent patient safety warning at hospital facing police probe

A private hospital facing a police investigation following a patient’s death has been given an urgent warning by the care regulator due to concerns over patient safety.

The Huntercombe Hospital in Maidenhead, which treats children with mental health needs, was told it must urgently address safety issues found by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) following an inspection in March.

The CQC handed the hospital a formal warning due to concerns over failures in the way staff were carrying out observations of vulnerable patients.

The move comes as The Independent revealed police are investigating the hospital in relation to the death of a young girl earlier this year.

In a report published last week, the care watchdog said it had received “mainly negative” feedback from young people at the hospital’s Thames ward, a psychiatric intensive care unit which treats acutely unwell children.

Commenting on the hospital overall, the report said: “Young people told us that staff did not follow the care plans in relation to their level of observations. They told us that if there was an incident the staff stopped doing intermittent observations. Staff in charge of shifts on wards asked new staff members to do observations before they understood how to do it. Staff had to ask the young person how to carry out their observations as they did not always understand what was expected of them in carrying out different levels of observations.”

Read full story

Source: The Independent, 19 May 2022

Read more

Urgent investment for Long Covid: Call to action for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak

Former Prime Minister Boris Johnson is scheduled to provide evidence at the Covid Inquiry on the 6 and 7 of December. Long Covid is one of the most catastrophic consequences of the pandemic and it deserves a prominent place in the discussions during this critical phase of the inquiry.

The Long Covid Groups will be delivering a letter to No.10 Downing Street today, urging attention to the unique challenges faced by those with Long Covid. 

Read the letter and sign the petition

Read more
 

Urgent inquiry ordered into 'witch-hunt' at West Suffolk hospital

The government has ordered an urgent inquiry into the local hospital of the health secretary, Matt Hancock, after the Guardian revealed its unprecedented “witch-hunt” for a whistleblower.

The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) has told NHS England to commission a “rapid review” of the actions of bosses at West Suffolk hospital.

They are under fire for demanding that staff give fingerprints and samples of their handwriting to help identify who wrote to a family alerting them to failings in care that contributed to a patient’s death.

Unusually, the investigation has been instigated by Edward Argar, a junior minister at the DHSC, because Hancock and another health minister, Jo Churchill, are both local MPs who have close ties to the hospital.

Argar has made clear to NHS England that the inquiry must be undertaken by independent experts, given those existing relationships.

Announcing the review, Argar made clear that he wanted hospital personnel to speak openly. “I want all staff to feel that they can speak up and have the confidence that anything they raise will be taken seriously,” he said.

Read full story

Source: The Guardian, 28 January 2020

Read more

Urgent debate over cervical cancer screenings

An urgent debate has been called in the Senedd over a move to extend routine cervical screenings in Wales from every three years to five years.

Public Health Wales (PHW) said those aged 25-49 who had not tested positive for human papillomavirus (HPV) would now wait two more years between tests.

PHW said it was because the screening tests are now more accurate. However, 30,000 people signed a petition against it, citing the risk it could cause an increase in deaths.

Particularly concerned are those who have not received the HPV vaccine, a national immunisation programme for which began in 2008 for girls aged 12 to 13.

The number of signatures on the official petition on the Welsh Parliament's website was more than enough to trigger the issue to be looked at.

The change follows a recommendation from the UK National Screening Committee.

Last week, Public Health Wales apologised for causing "concern" over how it explained changes to screenings following its announcement.

Read full story

Source: BBC News, 10 January 2022

Read more

Urgent children’s ops routinely cancelled due to covid pressure

Dozens and potentially hundreds of urgent operations for children have been cancelled during the third wave of the covid pandemic, HSJ can reveal.

There are also concerns that national guidance for prioritising surgery “disadvantages” young people.

Several well placed sources told HSJ that urgent operations for children have been delayed in recent weeks because of covid pressures. This is because of a combination of staff being diverted to help with adults sick with covid, and space in children’s facilities — including intensive care — being taken over for adult covid care, as well as other staff being absent due to covid.

The royal college of surgeons has told HSJ that urgent children’s operations “are increasingly being cancelled around the country”.

Dozens and potentially hundreds of children’s operations rated as priority two — those which are urgent and should be carried out within a month — have been cancelled and delayed in recent weeks in the capital, according to several well placed sources. This is alongside potentially thousands of priority three operations being cancelled, which are those needing to be carried out within three months.

Read full story

Source: HSJ, 31 January 2021

Read more
 

Urgent cancer ops cancelled in parts of London

Potentially life-saving cancer operations have been put on hold at a major London NHS trust because of the number of beds taken by Covid patients.

King's College Hospital Trust has cancelled all "Priority 2" operations - those doctors judge need to be carried out within 28 days.

Cancer Research UK said such cancellations did not appear to be widespread across the country.

And surgery has not been stopped on the same scale as during the first wave.

Rebecca Thomas, who has had her bowel cancer surgery at King's College Hospital "cancelled indefinitely", told the BBC she felt like she had been left "in limbo".

Until she has surgery her tumour cannot be studied to see how aggressive it is, and so she won't know until then how significant this wait will turn out to be.

A spokesperson for the Trust, which mainly serves patients in south London, said: "Due to the large increase in patients being admitted with COVID-19, including those requiring intensive care, we have taken the difficult decision to postpone all elective procedures, with the exception of cases where a delay would cause immediate harm.

"A small number of cancer patients due to be operated on this week have had their surgery postponed, with patients being kept under close review by senior doctors."

Read full story

Source: 5 January 2021

Read more

Urgent call for review into sentencing pregnant women due to health risks

A coalition of campaigners and health experts is calling for an urgent review into the sentencing of pregnant female offenders, warning of the increased risk of adverse outcomes to babies born in custody.

An open letter to Brandon Lewis, the justice secretary, and the Sentencing Council for England and Wales warns that pregnant women in jail suffer severe stress and highlights evidence suggesting they are more likely to have a stillbirth. The signatories include the Royal College of Midwives and Liberty.

The letter states: “Research into the experiences of pregnant women in English prisons found that [they] were unable to access basic comfort, adequate nutrition or fresh air, and that the fear of potential separation from their baby or shame of being made an incarcerated mother was debilitating.”

Women represent less than 5% of the total prison population, with about 3,200 in jail in England and Wales. The government says it has taken a package of measures to improve support for pregnant women in prison. In 2021/22, there were 50 births to women in jail in England and Wales: 47 at a hospital and three in transit to hospital or within a prison.

The prisons and probation ombudsman published a report last year on the death of a teenager’s baby after she gave birth alone in her cell in 2019 at HMP Bronzefield in Surrey. The woman had to bite through the umbilical cord and wrapped her baby in a towel. The child was dead by the time medical help arrived in the morning.

Data published by the Observer in December suggested women in prison were five times more likely to have a stillbirth and twice as likely to give birth to a premature baby. Research by the Nuffield Trust, an independent thinktank also found female prisoners are almost twice as likely to give birth prematurely as women in the general population.

Read full story

Source: The Guardian, 24 September 2022

Read more

Urgent call for help as ambulance trust faces relying on ‘first aiders’ during strikes

Medics and nurses have been urgently called upon to support London Ambulance Service during next week’s strike action, as it will otherwise have to rely on staff only able to provide ‘first aid’.

The North East London primary care team has sent out a request for clinical staff working for integrated care boards to be released from duties ahead of industrial action on 21 December.

Unison members are preparing to walk out, alongside thousands of other staff at nine other ambulance trusts across the country, in a dispute over pay.

The letter, seen by HSJ, was sent yesterday afternoon. It said: “LAS are keen to have experienced medics and nurses, who have current urgent and emergency clinical exposure, have knowledge of how to navigate the system and can operate as a senior clinical decision maker. Medical Practitioners would ideally be from general practice and emergency medicine.

“Advanced Paramedics and Advanced Care Practitioners with urgent care or IUC CAS experience are also required. A knowledge of ambulance services is preferred as it removes the need to learn very quickly the significant differences in ambulance services and LAS control rooms."

Read full story (paywalled)

Source: HSJ, 13 December 2022

Read more

Urgent action ordered at maternity scandal trust

The trust at the centre of a maternity scandal has been ordered to report on urgent improvements in services for women and babies, amid ‘significant concerns’ about the risk of harm.

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) used its enforcement powers to issue the conditions on East Kent Hospitals University Foundation Trust, after it carried out an unannounced inspection last month.

However, the “section 31” warning letter has just been made public, and the first deadline for the trust to report back to the CQC is Monday (20 February).

The CQC said some of the problems it found were due to the labour ward environment – but others involved monitoring of women and babies whose conditions deteriorate and the risk of cross-infection due to poor cleanliness standards.

“We have significant concerns about the ongoing wider risk of harm to patients and a need for greater recognition by the trust of the steps that can be taken in the interim to ensure safety and an improved quality of care,” Carolyn Jenkinson, CQC’s deputy director of secondary and specialist healthcare, said in a statement today.

Read full story (paywalled)

Source: HSJ, 17 February 2023

Read more

Updated toolkit for better working environments for nurses

The Royal College of Nursing has updated their Healthy Workplace toolkit to include the need for nurses to stay hydrated during their shifts and to take their at-work breaks. 

The toolkit was designed to improve health and wellbeing for nurses working in all areas of healthcare. It also includes pandemic-specific advice and an aim to improve working environments for nursing staff. 

Read full story.

Source: Royal College of Nursing, 21 June 2021

Read more

Updated PPE guidance puts NHS staff at risk of infection, say medics

NHS staff face unacceptable health risks as a result of “retrograde” changes to the government’s guidance on preventing spread of Covid-19, doctors’ leaders have warned.

The BMA said on 16 March it was concerned over updated guidance issued by the UK Health Security Agency covering use of personal protective equipment. It said the guidance failed to properly acknowledge that SARS-CoV-2 infection can spread in the air during the routine care of patients as they cough or sneeze and not just when specific processes known as aerosol generating procedures (AGPs) are being undertaken.

“This is a retrograde step as it once again means that healthcare workers will not be routinely provided the right level of protective masks and equipment they need to be safe at work when looking after covid patients,” said Chaand Nagpaul, the BMA’s chair of council.

The BMA said it was crucial that any staff looking after patients with confirmed or suspected Covid-19, or in other situations where a local risk assessment required it, had access to respiratory protective equipment such as filtering face piece (FFP3) masks.

Nagpaul said, “All healthcare workers who are caring for Covid-19 patients are putting themselves at risk, each and every day, and the very least the government should do is to provide surety that staff will be given the best protection possible.”

Respirators such as FFP3 masks are designed to protect the wearer from ingress of contaminated air and are fitted to ensure no gaps. They offer higher protection than surgical masks, which block the outward escape of droplets from the wearer.

The BMA’s concern follows a supposed clarification of the main messages regarding airborne transmission in the latest infection and prevention and control guidance issued on 15 March 2022.

The guidance said that respiratory protective equipment (FFP3 masks) are recommended when caring for patients with a suspected or confirmed infection spread “predominantly” by the airborne route (during the infectious period).

The word “predominantly” has been added to the previous guidance update, which was issued on 17 January 2022, and is the crux of doctors’ concern, one leading scientist said.

Read full story

Source: BMJ, 18 March 2022

Read more

Updated Freedom to Speak Up policy and guidance published

NHS England has published its new and updated national Freedom to Speak Up policy, which is applicable to primary care, secondary care and integrated care systems.

Together with NHS England, the National Guardian’s Office has also published new and updated Freedom to Speak Up guidance and a Freedom to Speak Up reflection and planning tool.

Each will help organisations deliver the People Promise for workers, by ensuring they have a voice that counts, and by developing a speaking up culture in which leaders and managers value the voice of their staff as a vital driver of learning and improvement.

NHSE is asking all trust boards to be able to evidence by the end of January 2024:

  • An update to their local Freedom to Speak Up policy to reflect the new national policy template.
  • Results of their organisation’s assessment of its Freedom to Speak Up arrangements against the revised guidance.
  • Assurance that it is on track implementing its latest Freedom to Speak Up improvement plan.

Dr Jayne Chidgey-Clark said: “The publication of the updated universal Freedom to Speak Up Policy for the sector is an opportunity for organisations to refresh their Freedom to Speak Up arrangements. The new guidance we have developed in collaboration with NHS England will help leaders throughout the sector turn that policy into a healthy and supportive Speak Up, Listen Up, Follow Up culture.”

Read more

Source: National Guardian Freedom to Speak Up, 23 June 2022

Read more

Updated Covid vaccines are nearly ready as alarm grows over new variant’s rapid spread

Updated Covid vaccines are expected to become available in the US next month as alarm grows over a new variant dubbed Eris.

Healthcare providers are grappling with a rise in hospitalisations stemming from Covid infections. Eris or EG.5.1, a subvariant of Omicron that originally emerged in late 2021, now accounts for around 17per cent of current COVID cases, according to the CDC.

Symptoms of the new variant include a runny nose, headache, fatigue, sneezing and a sore throat. In the week of 30 July to 5 August, the latest period that data is available for, hospitalisations spiked by more than 14per cent, while deaths rose 10per cent compared to the previous week.

It comes as providers and pharmacies prepare to roll out an updated vaccine designed to combat Omicron — but experts are not very optimistic that the greater majority of Americans will opt to be vaccinated.

Fewer than 50 million people in the US got the shot last fall, compared to 250 million, or 73 per cent of the country’s population, when the vaccine was first made available in 2021, according to the agency.

Read full story

Source: Independent, 16 August 2023

Read more

Update on LFPSE implementation deadline

In an email to staff today (9 May 2023) NHS England (NHSE) have confirmed that to meet the deadline for implementing the new Learn From Patient Safety Events (LFPSE) service, Trusts will only need to ensure this is underway by the 30 September 2023, rather than fully implemented.

LFPSE is a new central national service for recording and analysing patient safety events that occur in healthcare. Some NHS organisations are now using this system, instead of the National Reporting and Learning System (NRLS), and all organisations will be expected to transition to this.

The original date for Trusts to implement LFPSE was the 31 March 2023. However, in response to concerns about the achievability of this deadline, on the 18 October NHSE announced an optional six-month extension, meaning that Trusts needed to deploy the new system by the 30 September 2023.

Today’s email to NHS staff noted that some Trusts “are still anticipating challenges with the time scales”. Responding to this, NHSE clarified that provided the LFPSE transition within organisations Local Risk Management Systems was underway by the end of September, and that application of the guidance to configure formals and fields was being actively worked on, this milestone should be considered as having been met.

Commenting on this Helen Hughes, Chief Executive of charity Patient Safety Learning, said:

“This is a welcome announcement by NHS England, reducing the immediate pressure on staff who had raised serious concerns on the ability to have LFPSE configured and ready to submit events by the 30 September deadline. This flexibility will ensure that the new LFPSE service has a stronger chance of successful transition and to enable patient safety improvement”.

Read more

Up to one in 20 new diabetes cases could be linked to Covid, study suggests

Up to one in 20 new diabetes cases could be related to Covid infection, data suggests.

The research adds to mounting evidence the pandemic may be contributing to a rapidly escalating diabetes crisis, with individuals who have experienced more severe Covid at greatest risk.

However, lifestyle factors such as being overweight or obese continue to be the main driver for the increase, with 4.3 million officially diagnosed cases in the UK alone.

Although previous research has hinted that Sars-CoV-2 infection may increase the risk of developing diabetes – possibly by damaging insulin-producing cells in the pancreas – these studies were either relatively small or limited to specific groups of individuals, such as US military veterans, who may not represent the general population.

To delve deeper, Prof Naveed Janjua at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, and his colleagues turned to the British Columbia Covid-19 Cohort, a surveillance platform that links data on Covid infections and vaccinations with sociodemographic and administrative health data.

They examined records from 629,935 people who took a PCR test for Covid and found those who tested positive were significantly more likely to experience a new diagnosis of type 1 or type 2 diabetes in the following weeks and months – with 3-5% of new diabetes cases attributable to Covid overall.

Read full story

Source: The Guardian, 18 April 2023

Read more

Up to 900,000 older people taken to A&E each year due to lack of NHS care at home

Almost 900,000 older people are admitted to hospital every year as an emergency because the NHS is failing to keep them healthy at home, Age UK has warned.

A major lack of services outside hospitals means elderly people are also suffering avoidable harm, such as falls and urinary tract infections, the charity said.

In a new report it urges NHS bosses to push through huge changes to how the “hospital-oriented” service operates and establish “home first” as the principle of where care is provided.

Doing so would reduce the strain on overcrowded hospitals and leave the NHS better set up to respond to the increase in the number of over-65s and especially over-85s, Age UK said.

Its report, on the state of health and care of older people in England, concluded that “our health and care system is struggling, and too often failing, to meet the needs of our growing older population.”

Read full story

Source: The Guardian, 11 July 2023

Read more

Up to 8,700 patients died after catching Covid in English hospitals

Up to 8,700 patients died after catching Covid-19 while in hospital being treated for another medical problem, according to official NHS data obtained by the Guardian.

The figures, which were provided by the hospitals themselves, were described as “horrifying” by relatives of those who died.

Jeremy Hunt, the former health secretary, said that hospital-acquired Covid “remains one of the silent scandals of this pandemic, causing many thousands of avoidable deaths”.

NHS leaders and senior doctors have long claimed hospitals have struggled to stop Covid spreading because of shortages of single rooms, a lack of personal protective equipment and an inability to test staff and patients early in the pandemic.

Now, official figures supplied by NHS trusts in England show that 32,307 people have probably or definitely contracted the disease while in hospital since March 2020 – and 8,747 of them died.

That means that almost three in 10 (27.1%) of those infected that way lost their lives within 28 days.

“The NHS has done us all proud over the past year, but these new figures are devastating and pose challenging questions on whether the right hospital infection controls were in place”, said Hunt, who chairs the Commons health and social care select committee.

Read full story

Source: The Guardian, 24 May 2021

Read more
 

Up to 740,000 cancer cases needing urgent GP referrals could have been missed since first lockdown

The NHS may be missing more than 9 million referrals, while patients face a “postcode lottery” for cancer treatment and routine operations, a parliament watchdog has warned.

Millions of patients have either avoided or been unable to obtain healthcare during the pandemic leaving the NHS with a potential unknown backlog of operations, which could push the national waiting list to 12 million by 2025.

A report from the government’s National Audit Office today also warned patients across England are facing a postcode lottery in terms of waits with some hospital waiting lists far larger than others following the pandemic.

Eve Byrne, head of campaigns and public affairs, at Macmillan Cancer Support, said: “This report confirms what we hear day in, day out from people living with cancer. Chronic staffing shortages are already having a devastating impact on cancer patients, and we have major concerns that is only set to worsen without urgent action.

She said the government’s plan to tackle operations backlog must be backed up by steps to ensure enough nurses staff.

“Without these critical pieces of the puzzle, we risk increasing numbers of people facing later diagnoses, poorer care and potentially worse chances of survival. This has to change,” she added.

Read full story

Source: The Independent, 1 December 2021

Read more

Up to 500 people dying each week from emergency care delays, doctor says

Up to 500 people are dying every week because of delays in emergency care, Britain’s top accident and emergency doctor has said.

Dr Adrian Boyle, the president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine (RCEM), said a bad flu season was compounding systemic problems, leading to hundreds of unnecessary deaths.

NHS leaders warned last week that the health service is in the grip of a “twindemic”, with soaring flu admissions and the impact of Covid “hitting staff hard”.

Dr Boyle told Times Radio: “If you look at the graphs they all are going the wrong way, and I think there needs to be a real reset. We need to be in a situation where we cannot just shrug our shoulders and say this winter was terrible, let’s do nothing until next winter.

“We need to increase our capacity within our hospitals, we need to make sure that there are alternative ways so that people aren’t all just funnelled into the ambulance service and emergency department. We cannot continue like this – it is unsafe and it is undignified.”

Read full story

Source: The Telegraph, 1 January 2023

Read more
 

Up to 20% of hospital patients in England got coronavirus while in for another illness

Up to a fifth of patients with COVID-19 in several hospitals contracted the disease over the course of the pandemic while already being treated there for another illness, NHS bosses have told senior doctors and nurses.

Some of the infections were passed on by hospital staff who were unaware they had the virus and were displaying no symptoms, while patients with coronavirus were responsible for the others.

The figures represent NHS England’s first estimate of the size of the problem of hospital-acquired COVID-19, which Boris Johnson last week said was causing an “epidemic” of deaths. In a national briefing last month on infection control and COVID-19, NHS England told the medical directors and chief nurses of all acute hospitals in England that it had found that 10%-20% of people in hospital with the disease had got it while they were inpatients.

Senior doctors and hospital managers say that doctors, nurses and other staff have inadvertently passed on the virus to patients because they did not have adequate personal protective equipment (PPE) or could not get tested for the virus.

Doctors say that hospital-acquired COVID-19 is a significant problem and that patients have died after becoming infected that way. One surgeon, who did not want to be named, said: “Multiple patients my department treated who were inpatients pre lockdown got the bug and died. Obviously the timeline supports that they acquired it from staff and other patients.”

Read full story

Source: The Guardian, 17 May 2020

Read more
 

Up to 100,000 on antipsychotics with no review

A national strategy is needed to tackle health risks linked to antipsychotic drugs because current policy is letting tens of thousands of people fall through the gaps, commissioners in London are warning.

Commissioners and clinicians in City and Hackney found more than 1,000 patients in their area who were on these drugs without having regular medication reviews or health checks. They warned that, if their findings applied across England, 100,000 patients could be in the same position. 

Although NHS England funds GP practices to carry out regular health checks on patients who are on the serious mental illness register, this excludes patients who are prescribed antipsychotics without having an SMI diagnosis — which typically covers psychoses, schizophrenia or bipolar active disorder. 

An audit by City and Hackney Clinical Commissioning Group, carried out in July 2019 and shared with HSJ, found 1,200 patients in the area were taking antipsychotics but did not have a formal SMI diagnosis.

The audit found most of these patients were not receiving regular health checks and a significant number may have benefited from having their medication reduced. 

Read full story (paywalled)

Source: HSJ, 27 January 2020

Read more

Unvaccinated seniors 49 times more likely to be hospitalised than those with boosters – CDC

New data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has revealed that unvaccinated adults infected with Covid-19 who are 65 and older are 49 times more likely to need hospitalisation compared to those who have received booster doses.

The CDC also found that in December, unvaccinated adults in that same age group experienced a rate of Covid-related hospitalisation 17 times higher than those who are fully vaccinated.

For unvaccinated adults between 50 and 64, they are 44 times more likely to require hospitalisation compared with those who are immunised.

In that same age group, unvaccinated adults were also 17 times more likely to experience Covid-related hospitalisation.

According to the CDC, adults who are 65 and older and have received both doses of either the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine showed a 94% reduced risk of Covid-related hospitalisations.

“Getting very sick means that older adults with Covid-19 might need hospitalization, intensive care, or a ventilator to help them breathe, or they might even die. The risk increases for people in their 50s and increases in 60s, 70s, and 80s. People 85 and older are the most likely to get very sick,” the CDC said on its website.

“Get vaccinated as soon as possible,” the agency added.

Read full story

Source: The Guardian, 21 January 2022

Read more

Unvaccinated NHS staff will be barred from entering care homes

New rules for care home staff are set to come into force on November 11, 2021, requiring all staff to be vaccinated against Covid-19, unless they are exempt.

Care homes will also be able to refuse entry to anyone who is unable to prove they have been fully vaccinated, with the Care Quality Commission warning that care homes will be monitored around their implementation of the new rules.

In a letter to members of the House of Lords it warned: “The sector faces 112,000 vacancies currently, if the 5 per cent, who may eventually choose not to have the vaccine, leave the sector and are added to the current vacancies it will completely destabilise an already fragile sector.”

Read full story.

Source: The Independent, 23 August 2021

Read more
 

Unvaccinated man denied heart transplant by Boston hospital

A US hospital has rejected a patient for a heart transplant at least in part because he is not vaccinated against COVID-19.

DJ Ferguson, 31, is in dire need of a new heart, but Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston took him off their list, said his father, David.

He said the Covid vaccine goes against his son's "basic principles, he doesn't believe in it".

The hospital said it was following policy.

Brigham and Women's Hospital told the BBC in a statement: "Given the shortage of available organs, we do everything we can to ensure that a patient who receives a transplanted organ has the greatest chance of survival."

A spokesman said the hospital requires "the Covid-19 vaccine, and lifestyle behaviours for transplant candidates to create both the best chance for a successful operation and to optimise the patient's survival after transplantation, given that their immune system is drastically suppressed".

The hospital's carefully worded statement may suggest other factors lie beyond the patient's unvaccinated status for his ineligibility, but it refused to discuss specifics, citing patient privacy.

Dr Arthur Caplan, head of medical ethics at NYU Grossman School of Medicine, told CBS News that after any organ transplant a patient's immune system is all but shut down and even a common cold can prove fatal.

"The organs are scarce, we are not going to distribute them to someone who has a poor chance of living when others who are vaccinated have a better chance post-surgery of surviving," said Dr Caplan.

Read full story

Source: BBC News, 26 January 2022

Read more
×
×
  • Create New...