Given less than 16 months to live, 15-year-old Anthony Stokes will be placed on the top of the donor list after initially being denied by Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta at Egleston due to a “history of non-compliance,” according to WSBTV.
“They said they don’t have any evidence that he would take his medicine or that he would go to his follow-ups,” Melencia Hamilton, Anthony’s mother told WSBTV.
Without a transplant, Stokes will die due his condition of dilated cardiomyopathy.
When news hit that Stokes would be denied a transplant, locals were outraged.
“The non-compliance is fabricating, because they don’t want to give him a heart,” family friend Mack Major told Channel 2’s Tony Thomas. “This is unacceptable because he must lose his life because of a non-compliance.”
A family friend also told Thomas that Stokes was denied party because of his low grades and trouble with the law.
His story was picked up by civil rights organizations, including the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC)
"He's been given a death sentence because of a broad and vague excuse of noncompliance,” Christine Young Brown of the SCLC said to CBS Atlanta. “There was nothing specific in that decision. Just non-compliance.”
According to the Atlanta Journal- Constitution, family spokesperson Mark Bell says the hospital hasn’t offered a reason for their change of heart, but is planning to make a statement soon.
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