The family of a patient who is fighting for his life is speaking out after a Boston hospital removed him from its heart transplant list because he is unvaccinated against COVID-19.

What are the details?

David Ferguson told WBZ-TV this week that his 31-year-old son DJ Ferguson's heart has deteriorated to the point that it will no longer work on its own. Thankfully, he was first in line to receive a heart transplant. Yet because of his unvaccinated status, the hospital ruled that he was no longer eligible for the transplant.

“My son has gone to the edge of death to stick to his guns and he’s been pushed to the limit,” Ferguson told the outlet, adding that his son simply won't get the shot. “It’s kind of against his basic principles, he doesn’t believe in it. It’s a policy they are enforcing and so because he won’t get the shot, they took him off the list of a heart transplant."

In a statement, Brigham and Women’s Hospital confirmed its decision to remove Ferguson from the list, saying, “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.”

Man Can't Get Heart Transplant Because He's Not Vaccinated Against COVID www.youtube.com

The family is now reportedly considering every option to save their loved one's life, including seeking transfer to a different hospital facility that doesn't have a vaccine requirement in place. But a transfer could be dangerous since DJ may already be too weak to move.

“We are aggressively pursuing all options, but we are running out of time,” David Ferguson said.

DJ Ferguson is a father of two children with a third on the way. His family said that while they are pleased with the great care he has received from staff at Brigham and Women’s, they just don't agree with the hospital's vaccination policy.

“I think my boy is fighting pretty damn courageously and he has integrity and principles he really believes in and that makes me respect him all the more,” the father said defiantly, adding, "It's his body, it's his choice."

What else?

But that's not how the hospital, nor some other medical experts, see it.

Speaking with WBZ, Dr. Arthur Caplan, head of medical ethics at the New York University Grossman School of Medicine, sided with the hospital's decision, explaining that transplant patients are at particular risk due to a compromised immune system.

“Post any transplant, kidney, heart whatever, your immune system is shut off,” Caplan said. “The flu could kill you, a cold could kill you, COVID could kill you. 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.”

Ferguson is not the first patient in desperate need of a transplant to be removed from a wait list because he is unvaccinated.

Last August, reports surfaced that a hospital in Washington state had removed multiple patients from its organ wait list on behalf of a vaccine requirement. Then in October, the Cleveland Clinic halted a last-minute lifesaving kidney transplant due to a vaccine requirement policy that had gone into effect only days before.

That same month, a woman was denied a kidney transplant by the University of Colorado Health System after it was revealed that both she and her donor were unvaccinated.