A hospital in Hanoi performed 16 life-saving organ transplants over a recent one-month period, a national record.
VnExpress reports that the Viet-Duc Friendship Hospital in Hoan Kiem District successfully transplanted four hearts, four livers and eight kidneys from four donors into 16 patients from May 16 to June 13.
Dr. Trang Binh Giang, the facility's director, told the news source that it is the most transplants ever performed at a Vietnamese hospital in a one-month span.
He added that, given the large number of donors, roughly 100 doctors worked overnight, performing simultaneous operations on five tables.
Since 2010, the hospital has transplanted 600 kidneys, 60 livers and 20 hearts from 40 brain-dead patients.
It is believed that Nguyen Hai An, a seven-year-old girl who agreed to donate her corneas before dying of a brain tumor in Hanoi on February 22, inspired people to register as organ donors.
The National Coordinating Center for Human Organ Transplantation told the newspaper that 20 people registered in the capital alone on February 26 and 27, tenfold the usual figure.
Vietnamese hospitals aim to be able to perform intestinal, uterine, genital and facial transplants by 2020. Anyone interested in registering to become an organ donor can do so at the Viet-Duc Friendship Hospital, or at Saigon's Cho Ray Hospital.
[Photo via Bao Thua Thien-Hue]
