An Alberta judge has ruled that the Charter does not apply to transplant patients.

Sheila Annette Lewis is an Alberta woman with a chronic disease. She brought an application to the Alberta Court of Queen’s Bench, asking that the court uphold her Charter-protected right to conscience, bodily autonomy, and freedom to choose without coercion after being denied a life-saving transplant.

Worse still, the doctors damning her to die are protected from public scrutiny. According to Lewis’ lawyers from the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms (JCCF):

“This case is under a publication ban. Due to a Court Order, the Justice Centre may not reveal the names of the doctors, the hospital, the city where the transplant program is located, nor the name of the organ that Ms. Lewis needs for life-saving surgery.

The transplant program team is a group of doctors who work within an organ transplant program, which is funded by Alberta Health Services (“AHS”). Both the transplant program and AHS have unwritten policies which require transplant candidates to receive the Covid vaccine prior to vaccination.”

There is no written COVID vaccination policy by either AHS or the transplant team. Ms. Lewis was only verbally told by her doctors in November 2021 that AHS required proof of vaccination for transplant candidates.

She was kicked off the transplant list because of an unwritten, “proposed” policy only the doctors knew about and had crafted on their own.

That’s why we are launching a petition that we will deliver to Health Minister Jason Copping, calling on him to rein in these doctors and their punishing, made-up policy.

If you agree that a person's vaccination status should not be a death sentence for someone waiting for an organ transplant, please sign the petition on this page.