The hospital announced on May 19 that the two donation and transplant procedures were completed shortly before the April 30 holiday.
Cho Ray Hospital received information about a 55-year-old patient from Dong Thap Province who had suffered severe traumatic brain injuries and was being treated at Tien Giang General Hospital on April 19. As the patient’s condition deteriorated beyond recovery, the family proactively contacted doctors and expressed their wish to donate the patient’s organs to save others.
An inter-hospital consultation was immediately convened, and Cho Ray Hospital dispatched a medical team to Tien Giang to assess the case and discuss organ donation procedures with the family. Because local conditions were not sufficient for advanced organ procurement procedures, the donor was transferred to Cho Ray Hospital.
Doctors successfully retrieved a heart, a liver, two kidneys, and one cornea. All transplant surgeries had been completed, giving six patients a renewed chance at life by 8 a.m. on April 20. The liver was split into two sections, with one transplanted into an adult at Cho Ray Hospital and the other into a pediatric patient at the University Medical Center HCMC.
Just three days later, the hospital received another organ donation case involving a 41-year-old man from Thanh Hoa Province who suffered severe brain injuries in a traffic accident on April 22. According to relatives, the man had previously expressed his wish to donate organs after death, prompting his family to honor that decision. His wife also registered to donate her own organs and tissues while signing the donation consent form.
Medical teams retrieved another heart, liver, two kidneys, and two corneas, which were successfully transplanted into six additional patients.
Dr. Du Thi Ngoc Thu, Head of the hospital’s Organ Transplant Coordination Unit, said several recipients were facing severe financial hardship. Support from Vietnam’s national health insurance system and charitable donors enabled them to receive timely transplants and extend their lives.
All 12 recipients are now recovering in stable condition.
Mr. Pham Thanh Viet, Director of Cho Ray Hospital, said the hospital aims to build a broader organ donation and transplant coordination network across Southern Vietnam and the Central Highlands to improve the identification of potential donors and strengthen cooperation in diagnosis, treatment, organ preservation, and emergency transplantation.
The hospital also plans to expand technology transfers for organ transplant procedures to regional hospitals to reduce the risk of wasting donated organs due to transport time and geographic distance.
Among the recent transplant cases were three critically urgent patients, including a child treated at the University Medical Center HCMC, a patient with acute liver failure, and another suffering acute heart failure at Cho Ray Hospital. Doctors said all three were at extremely high risk of death and would likely not have survived without the timely arrival of compatible donor organs.
)
