Organ transplant centre operational in Hanoi
The National Centre for co-ordinating Human Organ Transplants, which opened in Hanoi on June 29, is a long overdue service that facilitates organ transplantation in Vietnam.
Located at Vietnam-Germany Hospital, the centre, designed to coordinate donated body tissues and organs, will liaise with tissue banks and hospitals nationwide.
At the opening ceremony, Minister of Health Nguyen Thi Kim Tien highlighted the new centre as a milestone in the nation’s health care service.
“The country is facing a huge demand for organ transplants”, said Tien.
She revealed that Vietnam currently has around 6,000 patients with chronic kidney failure who urgently need transplants and more than 5,000 others that need corneas and other organs.
However, Tien said that organ transplants in Vietnam are not very commonplace, as the public is not aware of the importance of donating their organs.
“Many people have volunteered to donate their body after death but so far no-one has donated any tissue. However, there have been a few cases if tissue donations from people who had been left brain dead after accidents or serious traumas and the country has a number of potential sources”, said Tien.
The Director of Vietnam-Germany Hospital, Nguyen Tien Quyet, said that a total of 14 people have voluntarily donated their organs over the past four years, while hundreds of people are waiting in hospitals for organ transplants.
Statistics issued by the Ministry of Health show that the country has 13 medical teams that meet the regulations and conditions for carrying out body tissue and organ transplants.
The health sector has so far performed 900 kidney, 41 liver and eight heart transplants, since the first kidney transplant in 1992.