The Canadian who was denied a transplant for refusing COVID-19 vaccine dies

Sheila Annette Lewis died last week as a result of her serious illness and after being rejected for a transplant by Alberta Health Services. The 58-year-old woman rose to fame after suing Alberta Health Services for requiring she get the COVID-19 vaccine to be an organ recipient.

The Justice Center for Constitutional Freedoms announced Lewis' passing on Thursday in a post on X (Twitter). After being rejected by the Canadian health system, Sheila Annette Lewis raised money to travel to the United States and receive an organ transplant there.

According to Canadian media outlets, Sheila Annette Lewis was diagnosed with a terminal illness in 2018 and then was put on the Alberta Health Service's transplant waiting list. As a requirement of the transplant program, Lewis had to update her childhood vaccines with new doses.

Three years later, after the pandemic and the lockdown, the health authorities of Alberta added the COVID-19 vaccine to the list of requirements for transplant recipients. According to the Canadian National Post, given the elevated risks of death after a transplant and the immunosuppressed status of transplant patients, the COVID-19 vaccine was considered crucial.

Ruling goes against freedom

Lewis refused to get the COVID-19 vaccine and decided to sue the Alberta Health Service. “Taking this vaccine offends my conscience. I ought to have the choice about what goes into my body and a lifesaving treatment cannot be denied to me because I chose not to take an experimental treatment for a condition — COVID-19 — which I do not have and which I may never have,” Lewis said in an affidavit collected by the National Post.

Lewis lost the lawsuit against the Alberta Health Service and was not given the option to appeal to a higher court. The Superior Court of Alberta considered that agreeing with Lewis would have posed serious problems for Canadian public policy, setting an unwanted precedent.