SIDE EFFECT

Arizona Man: My Transplant Was Nixed When Hospital Ran Out of Beds Because of COVID

Hospitals in the state have been deluged with coronavirus patients in recent weeks.

An Arizona man says his chance for a kidney transplant was scuttled because there were no hospital beds available as the state is deluged with new coronavirus cases. Darren Skousen, 43, told the Arizona Republic he has been on dialysis for 19 months and was thrilled when he got a call Thursday that he was first in line for a donor kidney. He got ready for the surgery at Banner-University Medicine Transplant Institute only to get another call hours later telling him the procedure was canceled. “I asked if they could do it at a different hospital," Skousen said. ”They just said ‘no.’” As The Daily Beast reported last month, Arizona began running out of hospital beds as COVID-19 surged in the Southwest amid the lifting of lockdowns.