Charles Nelson, a disabled Army veteran, needed a kidney transplant and luckily his son, Coty Nelson, was a match. But the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs wouldn't cover the transplant because his son was not a veteran.

When Charles, a former Army Specialist, attempted to get approval from his Veteran Affairs Choice Program healthcare provider, he was told he wasn't eligible for coverage because his son was not a veteran.

The program – available to veterans who live more than 40 miles away from a VA transplant facility – only allows veterans to receive transplants from other veterans.

"If you know about transplants, you know it's hard enough to find a non-veteran donor," Charles told BuzzFeed News.

Charles, 48, and his wife Tamara Nelson decided to raise the money to cover their son's half of the surgery, but the VA told them the Choice Program still would not cover it, because it "was really just one kind of surgery" for both people, she said.



"The VA is kind of a joke," Tamara Nelson told BuzzFeed News. "We love our doctors and could not be happier with them, but the bureaucratic bullshit makes this all so hard."

The Department of Veterans Affairs did not immediately respond to a BuzzFeed News request for comment.

Specialist Charles Nelson caught strep throat when he was stationed in South Korea in 1988. After going untreated, it eventually turned into a kidney disease. This will be his second transplant.