There's a strong tendency on this forum (as well as most other online fora) for opinions that don't adhere to the site's prevalent line to be shouted down.
There are at least two ways to read this situation: On the one hand, guy is being denied access to a lifesaving operation because of covid vaccine status. On the other hand, the guy is denying himself access to that lifesaving operation through a conscious decision that may or may not be well reasoned. I don't recall anything in the articles which emphasize his doctors' opinions about his case, or if those doctors are lobbying for an exception to this policy because of his specific condition, maybe they are, maybe it's strictly the guy with the bad heart being more afraid of the vaccine side effects than of not getting the transplant.
Maybe he has a strong moral or religious stance against the use of fetal tissue in the research of the mRNA vaccines. Either way, nobody is forcing him to take the vaccine and he's not entitled to an organ transplant just because he's really sick.
It's also unlikely that this story reflects the implied "he was going to get a heart transplant, but he was denied the operation." As you had said, he was on a list, the list had requirements that are decided at the national level, and he didn't meet one of the key requirements as determined at that level, so he got taken off the list.
Presumably he would be back on the list if he got the vaccine, but maybe his condition is now past the point he can safely take the vaccine and withstand the effects, or maybe he'd rather play things out differently. He had a year, and he knew he was sick and for better or worse, what the criteria for being a candidate for transplant were a year ago, so it's not a matter of waiting to come around to the idea. The story only tells one portion of that, from a point of view that the vaccines, and anyone pushing them, are de facto evil. The local hospital doesn't have a say in the matter at that point, there aren't a fridge full of suitable organs available, and given the extensive amounts of medications and precautions that organ transplant recipients have to adhere to post-transplant, it's not a great signal that this person would have the mindset necessary to follow along and make the most of that second chance at life.
I also don't think it's unfair to characterize those lists and the people who decide who gets on the list and how they rank as a "death panel". There is a great deal of scarcity when it comes to transplant organs, not everyone gets one and someone has to figure out how to address the scarcity. The decision has to be made where the organs go when they become available, and some people get them over other people based off that list made up by a group of nameless someones. In cases where there is scarcity in resources for medical care, death panels are a necessary part of medical care. In the rollout of the vaccines, those someones also decided who got the vaccines first because they were highest risk, denying until later the other people in the population who wanted a vaccine.
Great synopsis. You mentioned “He had a year” and right there is a big red flag, a year ago the COVID vaccine was just rolling out and doubtful it was required at that time for transplant There is no way, a thirty-one year old with a family, “ top on the list” would have had to wait a year for a heart transplant. He would have been a top candidate the day he was accepted on the registry, probably a new heart within thirty days. I don’t think we are getting the entire story and there has to be other issues.
Something else we learned, these transplant certified hospitals are watched very closely. They are rated as to transplant success and they themselves given grades. If there are an inordinate number of transplant failures, the hospital is meticulously investigated, suspended from performing transplants until case by case has been resolved. They can then be cancelled. Therefore, they want only the most viable transplant recipients and therefore carefully scrutinized. This guy would have been a poster child for the hospital, something is missing.