Life-saving organs going unused in Hong Kong

Aug 25, 2009, 9:09 GMT

   Hong Kong - Life-saving organs are going unused in Hong Kong because of failures in its organ donor programme, an analysis published Tuesday has revealed.

   Only one in five potential donors have their organs used for transplants according to the Hospital Authority which examined the donor programme over a five-year period.

   Lack of manpower in the programme and delays in confirming brain dead status - something needed before relatives can be approached for consent - were partly to blame for the problem, the analysis found.

   However, the study also showed that failure to maintain the condition of the donor's body after death was also a contributing factor.

   The problem has frustrated donor surgeons in the city of 7 million which has a low rate of people carrying donor cards because of traditional Chinese beliefs that bodies should remain intact after death.

   Only 5.3 people per 1 million have their organs used in transplants compared to 34 in Spain, 26 in the US, 15 in Britain and 12 in Australia.

   Transplant experts in Hong Kong are now calling for improvements in the procurement of organs, and for increased manpower to support the programme.

   They also want frontline doctors to be given a legal obligation, like their counterparts in the United States, to report all brain dead patients to the transplant coordinators.

   'We have a long waiting list. There are more than 100 people waiting for a liver at any one time. We need to find some new ways to help them,' Kelvin Ng, a liver transplant surgeon at Queen Mary Hospital told local media.

   The study found that of the 760 potential donors referred to donor coordinators between 2003-07, only half received the brain dead confirmation needed before relatives can be approached for consent.

   Among those that did not receive the confirmation, more than two thirds were unfit or had been allowed to deteriorate rapidly.

   However, more than 28 per cent of cases were not followed up because of lack of coordinators in the donor programme.

   Of the 379 donors who had been confirmed brain dead, families of 164 gave consent. Organs from 146 of the orginal 760 donors were used for transplants.