Countless governments and corporations around the globe have imposed strict vaccine mandates in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and those policies have resulted in potentially deadly unintended consequences and repercussions.

One example is a toddler from Cyprus with a serious heart condition that was denied necessary surgery by hospitals in three different countries simply because the young boy’s parents were unvaccinated, Breitbart reported.

The three countries that reportedly refused to accept the Cypriot boy for surgery over the vaccine status of his parents were Germany, the United Kingdom, and Israel. Thankfully for the toddler, a hospital in Greece finally agreed to take the boy in and perform the vital procedure to keep him alive.

Three times rejected

Politico had reported on the details of the three hospitals in three countries rejecting the 3-year-old heart patient from Cyprus and made note of how the case raised serious ethical concerns about doctors and hospitals turning patients away due to being unvaccinated against COVID.

The unnamed boy from Cyprus had been hospitalized with a serious heart condition and required a surgical procedure that no hospital in the small Mediterranean nation was equipped to perform, so health authorities made arrangements for the boy to be treated at a hospital in Frankfurt, Germany.

However, just one day before the boy was set to travel to Germany, the hospital canceled the scheduled operation because of the unvaccinated status of the parents. The hospital had also rejected an offer for the boy to be accompanied by a vaccinated legal guardian instead of his parents.

In a scramble, health authorities in Cyprus attempted to make arrangements at hospitals in the U.K. and Israel but were also turned down for the same reason as the hospital in Germany — the fact that the boy’s parents were not vaccinated.

Eventually, a private hospital in Athens, Greece agreed to take the boy in, and he was immediately airlifted there from Cyprus to receive the life-saving surgery his condition necessitated.

Parents finally get vaccinated, albeit too late to change the situation

The Politico article noted that in the midst of all of this, the boy’s parents finally caved in and obtained the Pfizer vaccine, at the recommendation of the German hospital, but would have still been required to wait several weeks before traveling, a luxury of time the boy didn’t have with regard to the surgery that was needed immediately.

In an interview with a local Cyprus media outlet, the father of the young boy, a Russian national named Alexey Matveev, said, “In Germany, I know that unvaccinated patients are admitted to their hospitals, but I did not know what it has to do with my child’s surgery at this hospital, you must be vaccinated. If I knew of course I would do it.”

“Since the parent must be present to give his consent for the operation, I hurried to be vaccinated, as I was informed later,” the father added. “The reason I was not vaccinated earlier is that I am healthy and did not want to be vaccinated. I find it inappropriate for someone who is healthy to be vaccinated, even though I have followed all the health protocols since the beginning of the pandemic.”

What is really beyond “inappropriate” here is multiple hospitals in multiple countries casting aside their sacred oath and refusing to provide vital life-saving treatment to a sick boy due to the wholly unrelated vaccination status of the child’s parents.