COVID-19 another contributing factor to B.C.’s growing lung transplant waitlist

B.C.’s lung donor waitlist has been made longer for a variety of reasons, one of them being people with COVID-19 needing lifesaving transplants.

Dozens of people in B.C. have had to have double lung transplants this year, some of them because of the impacts of the virus on their bodies.

Dr. John Yee, the head of thoracic surgery at Vancouver General Hospital and UBC, performed nine of the surgeries in 2021 so far, and says eight of those patients were otherwise healthy and between 30 and around 50 years old. He says without these surgeries, all of these people, who got sick before vaccines were widely available, would have died from the damage caused by COVID-19.

“The immunization hopefully and I think will begin to taper off the number of people who will need transplants to deal with COVID,” he explained. “Currently, there are a number of people who are under evaluation for possible lung transplant. They all got sick before and they’re now vaccinated, but it doesn’t really matter because the damage is already done.”

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Yee, who is also the director of the lung transplant program in B.C., notes the patients’ lungs were so badly impacted by the virus, saying some resembled balloons that wouldn’t inflate.

While vaccines are now available to everyone in the province 12 and older, the majority of patients in intensive care units in B.C. are unvaccinated.

With still two months to go until the end of the year, Yee anticipates B.C. will set a new record for the most lung transplants in a year.

“Last year was the all-time record for British Columbia and this year we’re going to pass that very easily. Last year was already 55 and this year we’re already at 52, and we’re just starting November,” he told CityNews.

Organ donations up

While this may sound concerning, Yee notes this shows organ donation has gone up — which is a good thing.

“We’ve had more patients being referred to us for rescue via lung transplant, but I wouldn’t say the volumes that have increased are due to COVID — really the volumes are increased because of increased public awareness over organ donation, because the volume that we can do is directly related to the uptake of organ donation within our population,” Yee explained.

Over the years, new technologies have helped medical professionals utilize all donated organs more safely, making the process more efficient, Yee adds.

He says more than 30 people remain on the wait list for transplants in B.C. He’s encouraging everyone to become an organ donor.

More information on how to join B.C.’s Organ Donor Registry and how it works can be found online.

-With files from Nikitha Martins