‘NON-COMPLIANCE’

15-Year-Old Denied Heart Transplant

Unfairly, his family claims.

Fifteen-year-old Anthony Stokes’s family says he’s been unfairly denied a lifesaving heart transplant because of his failure to keep up with his medicine and doctor’s appointments. While the Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta hospital has declined to comment on Stokes's case, it explained via a statement: “We follow a very specific criteria in determining eligibility for a transplant of any kind.” Stokes's family friends have said they think the “non-compliance” excuse is nonsense, pointing to his bad grades and past run-ins with the law as the real reason why “they don’t want to give him a heart.” Yet, as the president of the American Heart Association has pointed out, an ability to keep up with medication is a vital requirement for a heart transplant. “You have to follow a very strict regimen,” she said. “Hearts are very scarce resources.”