Transplants plummet as overwhelmed hospitals focus on the coronavirus
Fred Banks apologizes for pausing mid-sentence to catch his breath. “I’m on oxygen 24/7,” explains the 65-year-old former wheat- and barley-farm worker.
On the waiting list for a double-lung transplant since December, Banks has twice made the trip by ferry from his home on the Olympic Peninsula to Seattle for the potentially life-saving surgery, the second time even going under anesthesia. Each time, his surgeons at the University of Washington Medical Center rejected the donated organs as not good enough to help him.
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