The family of an unvaccinated 14-year-old from North Carolina is seeking a medical center for a kidney transplant

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

Yulia Hicks was adopted from Ukraine in January 2021 by Lee and Chrissy Hicks. They knew she had a rare genetic kidney disease, Senior Loken Syndrome, which would eventually mean she needed a transplant.

However, on Nov. 11, they were told she was ineligible for Duke’s waiting list because she had not been vaccinated against COVID.

‘None of them have any compassion,’ said Chrissy Hicks.

‘It’s just to strong arm us: give her the vaccine and you’ll get a transplant.’

She said they have contacted a lawyer but ‘can’t let her life hang in the balance with a lawsuit’ – and are looking for an alternative medical centre.

The Hicks said that Yulia was already infected, but the hospital said that was not enough, and CDC guidelines require vaccination for transplant patients.

“They said the CDC recommendation was updated at the end of October and they had to follow the recommendation, and if she hadn’t gotten the vaccine she wouldn’t have had the transplant at Duke,” Chrissy Hicks said, speaking to Tucker Carlson on Friday night.

“We have been dealing with these doctors from Duke for at least two years, because our dialysis also goes through Duke,” she explained.

‘We do it at home for Yulia.

‘But the two doctors who rejected us because of the vaccine against COVID, we saw them for an eight-hour examination and then they told us that it would be necessary.

‘Then we retreated a bit.

“They put her before the committee on November 10.

‘She was rejected purely because of the vaccine and that’s when we decided to do a conference call and get actual evidence that they told us that.’

Carlson called the hospital’s decision “plainly unreasonable and wickedly cruel.”

Chrissy Hicks recorded the phone conversation in which the hospital explained why Yulia was denied a transplant.

‘I can’t demand anything from you,’ says the woman. ‘I can recommend these things.

‘But if you don’t follow our recommendations then Yulia cannot be a transplant candidate here.

‘Based on number five, which is persistent non-adherence to dialysis treatment or medical recommendations, and also based on number 10 – which are medical risk factors that make surgery unsafe.

‘And the fact that she was not vaccinated according to CDC recommendations, based on her age, is part of that.’

When the Hicks, devout Roman Catholics who have 11 children – three of whom are adopted – argued that Yulia had already recovered from COVID and was therefore protected, hospital staff hit back.

‘The virus continued to mutate,’ one man tells them.

‘So natural immunity is not as good as having natural immunity, plus vaccination.’

Chrissy Hicks told Carlson that the hospital staff was not understanding and did not even offer sympathy for not being able to help Yulia.

Carlson said it was ‘so bad it’s hard to digest’.

The North Carolina mother said they’ve hired a lawyer, but in the meantime, they’re hoping ‘the medical center will get back to us and let us know they’re going to do the transplant without the vaccine.’

‘We hired a lawyer. Mike Yoder is his name,’ she said.

‘We can’t let her life hang in the balance with litigation.

‘So we are hoping that your going on the show will reveal to us that the medical center will come forward and let us know that they will be doing the transplant without the vaccine.

‘We would like them to contact us.

‘We have created a website yuliagrace.com, contact us there, if there is a medical center that will help us.

“We also created – we have 11 children in the family. We are not financially able to go out of state to do this. Go to giftsendgo.com.

‘We have already had an outpouring of aid. We are very grateful to the people who came forward,’ she said.

‘What it boils down to is: this is bigger than Yulia, there are so many families in the same situation as Yulia, and we want to help other families.

A line has been drawn in the sand.

‘If we don’t stand up for our medical freedoms now, we won’t be able to stand up soon.’

Yulia’s case is not an isolated one.

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

A few weeks later, a North Carolina man, Chad Carswell, 38, said he would rather die than be forced to take a COVID jab to receive the kidney transplant he needs.

Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist, the hospital where Carswell hoped to receive his transplant, declined to comment on his case, but a spokeswoman said the hospital’s vaccine policy is intended to protect transplant patients, who are at high risk of severe disease from COVID. -om.

Last year, both the Cleveland Clinic and the University of Colorado Hospital refused to perform organ transplants for unvaccinated recipients.

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

They often have to be vaccinated against hepatitis B, commit to an annual flu shot and show immunity to measles.