The family of a 27-year-old man in Ha Noi, who was declared brain dead in a traffic accident, has voluntarily donated all of his internal organs as well as his corneas and tissues to patients needing replacement, according to the Viet Nam National Coordinating Centre for Human Organ Transplantation.

Illustrative image (Source: VNA)

The man’s liver and kidneys were transplanted into three patients at Viet Duc Hospital in Hanoi.

Meanwhile, his heart was found to be qualified for the transplant into Huynh Cong M, a 55 year-old patient who suffered end-stage heart failure and six times of cardiac arrest in the Hue Central Hospital in the central province of Thua Thien-Hue.

For the heart transplant, doctors had to transport it to Da Nang by air then to the Hue Central Hospital by car as flights to Hue city did not save the “golden time” for the surgery.

At 16:40 on 27 January, the heart was transplanted into Huynh Cong M and began beating at 18:15. M now can talk to doctors.

According to Trinh Hong Son, director of the Viet Nam National Coordinating Centre for Human Organ Transplantation under the Ministry of Health, in Ha Noi’s major hospitals alone, about 6,000 patients need a kidney transplant and more than 1,500 patients are on the waiting list for liver transplant. Over 6,000 people need cornea replacement, while heart and lung transplants are critical to save hundreds of others.

In Viet Nam, organ donation is yet to be accepted by the mass, hence a scarcity of tissues and organs for transplantation, particularly those from brain-dead patients. As of August 31, 2018 the number of brain-dead and circulatory-dead donors reached 223, accounting for 6.6% of the total donors. The majority of organs used in transplantation in Viet Nam are from living donors.

(Source: VNA)