For this week’s episode of “Candace,” host Candace Owens journeyed up to Boston to sit down with DJ Ferguson, who’s being denied activation on a heart transplant list because he is not vaccinated against COVID-19.
The hospital where Ferguson is fighting for his life, Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, a Harvard Medical School teaching school, released a statement last month confirming Ferguson’s denial of a heart.
“And like many other transplant programs in the United States – the COVID-19 vaccine is one of several vaccines and lifestyle behaviors required for transplant candidates in the Mass General Brigham system in order to create both the best chance for a successful operation and also the patient’s survival after transplantation,” the statement said.
Owens, who also interviews Ferguson’s parents and his pregnant partner Heather Dawson in the same episode, reveals how she was stonewalled by the hospital when she tried to gain access to Ferguson’s room, though the family wanted her there. The Daily Wire host was only allowed access to the room after Ferguson himself, who is weakened from open heart surgery, demanded Owens be allowed in his room.
“I was on the list and I filled out the forms,” Owens recalled before visiting Ferguson, “and when I got to the counter, I told her, I’m here to see DJ Ferguson. The person behind the counter looked him up, and she said, ‘Do you mean David Ferguson?’ — and she was right, of course, DJ is a nickname; his first name is David.”
“I said, yes, that’s the one. She then looked at his file, whatever was coming up on her screen, and immediately went to get a supervisor. The supervisor looked at the computer, looked right up at me and said, he’s not at this hospital. I instantly, said, ‘Well, you just told me his name,’ so, clearly she was able to find him in the database.”
Owens was then asked by the supervisor if she had Ferguson’s birthday. Owens called Heather and asked for his date of birth. After she complied with that request, the supervisor asked Owens if she had Ferguson’s floor number. Owens again called Heather and gave the hospital Ferguson’s correct floor number. Then Owens was asked Ferguson’s room number, and, again, called Heather for the room number.
“They never made me give them this stuff,” Owens recalled Heather telling her.
Still, Owens was stonewalled further. “The woman then came back, looked right at me, and said, ‘I’m sorry, he is not available to be seen, he is not at this hospital,’” Owens recalled.
“Long story short, what ended up having to happen after about 30-plus minutes, was DJ himself, despite just having had open heart surgery, had to contact the nurses on his floor and demand that they allow me upstairs, and eventually they did,” Owens said.
After Owens is finally allowed to see Ferguson, the young father reveals to Owens that he’s not comfortable taking the COVID-19 vaccine over what he said is a lack of transparency about potential side effects, particularly for someone like him who’s in need of a heart transplant.
“I personally don’t trust it,” Ferguson told Owens in reference to the vaccines, which the CDC says are “safe” and “effective.” The issue, he said, is “dishonesty” surrounding possible side effects.
Ferguson agreed with Owens that exceptions for people like himself with an enlarged heart need to be made.
“One of the members of the Brigham board said there will be no exceptions, that there’s no way that they’ll reverse their decision on that,” Ferguson recalled, adding that the hospital board is “not really looking at the medical facts of it.”
Ferguson noted that he’s open to getting monoclonal antibody treatment if he were to contract COVID post-heart transplant. “I’ve heard of post-transplant patients getting the antibody treatment and doing fine. And I’ve also heard of transplant people getting COVID and not getting that sick,” he said, emphasizing that his refusal for the vaccine is arbitrary.
Asked what keeps him going in these dire circumstances, Ferguson answered that it’s his family and children, foremost, and the “dream of having a farm” one day.
“I’ve dealt with adversity a lot, and I seem to overcome it well, from my experience,” he said, “and I just didn’t wanna cave to the pressure of the big hospital, because I knew it was coming before I even got here.”
Heather reveals to Owens earlier in the episode how her partner “passed every test with flying colors” to get his name added to the transplant list. But due to his refusal for the COVID-19 vaccine, his name will not be “activated” on the list.
Tearing up, Heather told Owens that she receives messages every day about him from “people saying he deserves to die because he’s not vaccinated against COVID.”
“His kids need their father,” she said, “this baby deserves to meet him.”
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Source: Dailywire
