Friday, 29 March, 2024
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New penalties for those who refuse to be vaccinated

The negative implications of being unvaccinated are manifesting in unexpected ways, writes MedicalBrief. In the US, a patient has been refused a heart transplant because of not being vaccinated, while in France, hospitals network director has started a national debate with the proposal that Covid-related ICU costs be recovered from patients who refused vaccination.

The transplant refusal occurred at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. The 31-year-old man was taken off the transplant list because he had refused to be vaccinated, his father, David Ferguson, told several media outlets.

Ferguson said son has been to the “edge of death” and “pushed to the limit” waiting for a heart transplant, only to be removed from the list because he refused a COVID-19 vaccination.

“It's kind of against his basic principles, he doesn’t believe in it,” Ferguson said. “It's a policy they are enforcing.”

A hospital spokesperson confirmed that vaccination against the coronavirus was “required” for their organ transplant recipients. The hospital “requires several CDC-recommended vaccines, including the COVID-19 vaccine”, it said. It also required “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 father said he respected his son’s choice and planned to get him transferred to another hospital.

Meanwhile, in Paris, the head of the Paris AP-HP hospitals system, Martin Hirsch, questioned whether people who refuse to be vaccinated against COVID-19 should continue to have their treatment covered by public health insurance.

“When free and efficient drugs are available, should people be able to renounce it without consequences … while we struggle to take care of other patients?” Hirsch said on French television. He said he raised the issue because health costs were exploding and that the irresponsible behaviour of some should not jeopardise the availability of the system for everyone else.

Under France's universal healthcare system, all COVID-19 patients who end up in intensive care are fully covered for their treatment, which costs about €3,000 per day and typically lasts a week to 10 days.

The proposal has ignited a heated debate, with far-right politicians calling for Hirsch to be fired and Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo, who chairs the AP-HP board and who is the Socialist Party’s candidate in the April presidential elections, said she disagreed with his proposal.

Health Minister Olivier Veran has not commented on Hirsch’s call but Olga Givernet, a lawmaker for President Emmanuel Macron’s LREM party, said on BFM TV  that “the issue as raised by the medical community could not be ignored”. An IFOP poll last month showed that 51% of French people considered it was justified that non-vaccinated people who wind up in intensive care should pay part or all of their hospital bill.

Conservative Les Republicains lawmaker Sebastien Huyghe, whose bill to make the unvaccinated pay some of their medical costs was rejected by parliament, said the idea was not to reject the non-vaccinated from intensive care wards, but to make them pay a minimum contribution toward the cost of their care.

The pay-for-care proposal for the unvaccinated is not a novel move. In Canada, the predominantly French-speaking Canadian province of Quebec last month announced that adult residents who refuse to get vaccinated against COVID-19 will be charged a financial penalty.

Premier Francois Legault said not getting vaccinated leads to consequences for the health care system and not all Quebecers should pay for that. The levy, which would be “significant” would only apply to people who do not qualify for medical exemptions.

In Singapore, which has one of the world's highest COVID-19 inoculation rates, those  who decline vaccines must pay for their medical treatment. The median bill size for COVID-19 patients requiring ICU admission is about US$18,483.

This article is produced under Creative Commons Licence and is freely reproducible, preferably with acknowledgement.

 

See more from MedicalBrief archives:

 

 

Anti-vaccine chiropractors: A rising force of misinformation

 

 

CDC panel backs third Pfizer and Moderna shot for the immunocompromised

 

 

Nearly 40% of US Marines decline COVID-19 vaccine

 

 

 

 

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