Few of us will ever have to deal so regularly with the kind of grief and sadness that comes with bereavement - or the desperation seen on the faces of the sick people who so urgently need a new organ to survive.

As one of only four transplant co-ordinators in Hong Kong, Ms Ho, who is based at Queen Mary Hospital, is primarily involved in convincing grieving relatives to donate the organs of their recently deceased loved ones to the patients on a waiting list.

One of the most emotionally draining and psychologically intense jobs, Ms Ho is constantly under pressure to secure organs and to simultaneously deal with bereaved and even angry people who have just suffered a terrible loss.

Two essential skills she has developed since taking on the job are a thick skin and the ability to gauge the temperament of others.

Both are qualities she has learnt the hard way.

'I remember one of my earliest cases of trying to talk to a family member,' Ms Ho said.

'The man sat quietly all through my donation talk so I assumed he understood what I was saying. When I finished, he turned to me extremely angry and said: 'You are lucky you are a woman. If you were a man, I would have hit you already'.'

She has learnt to handle this kind of emotional pressure by changing her style of doing things; not diving head first into a conversation and always trying to get an informative brief about the family in question from the nurses and doctors before going ahead and confronting them.

Years of dealing with such tension and on occasion, even rudeness, has taught Ms Ho a valuable lesson.

'Some families do get angry with me when I try to talk to them about organ donation, but I can take their harsh words better now because I am more prepared. I know that if they lash out at me, it is not anything to do with me. They are just trying to vent their anger and I happen to be the closest person around for them to vent at,' she said.

It is harsh for anyone to take on the role of an emotional punching bag day after day but to a certain extent it comes with the work.

It is Ms Ho's absolute belief in organ donation and her emotional detachment that has helped her through the hardest times.

Her approach to organ donation is not aggressive. Rather, she sees her work as merely giving people an opportunity to consider donating to a good cause.

'Organ donation should be a long-term thing,' Ms Ho said. 'It is really too late to be thinking about it at the point of death, so my starting point is not so much to try and change the families' fundamental concepts in a matter of minutes, but to give them the opportunity [to donate] if they so wish, even though many families say they have never thought of such things before.'

While most healthy people are unlikely to have ever heard of what a transplant co-ordinator is, let alone come face to face with one, Ms Ho is an indispensable lifeline to patients who are very sick and to whom a transplant means the difference between life or death.

She has come a long way. Trained as a general nurse, she was unprepared initially to handle tough encounters with bereaved families and to experience human grief first hand.

She worked in several wards, including general and maternity, before specialising as a renal nurse.

Her experience of caring for kidney patients laid the groundwork for her to become one of the city's first transplant co-ordinators at her then supervisor's suggestion.

'Many renal nurses overseas are chosen to become transplant co-ordinators because they have seen first hand the suffering of kidney patients and can really understand what they go through,' she said.

'Their suffering is very hard to take. They are so tired and sick all of the time.'

She visits hospital wards daily to see if there are any suitable organ donors. While brain stem and cardiac death patients can be potential donors for external organs such as corneas, tissue and bone, only brain death patients' internal organs such as hearts, lungs, kidneys or livers are appropriate for donation.

'Brain stem death patients are more suitable for internal organ donation because the heart is still pumping oxygen and nutrition around the body, so it means the organs will be in much better condition than those who have suffered a cardiac death,' Ms Ho explained.

But due to the rarity of brain stem deaths, which are typically caused by head injuries, strokes, industrial accidents and fires, finding a suitable donor who is disease free and meets the varying age criteria depending on the organ, is extremely difficult. If a match is found and consent given, Ms Ho has to move quickly to notify the relevant medical department, which then co-ordinates the transplant operation.

This must also be done as quickly as possible because organs can only be stored at a fixed temperature for a limited time before they become unusable.

While Hong Kong peoples' attitude to organ donation has improved over the years, Ms Ho said most people were still reluctant to donate, with only three out of 10 agreeing to it.

But this was nonetheless better than the one out of 10 who agreed when she first started doing the job.

The reason she has been able to deal with the stresses of her work for more than a decade is thanks to her own personality: she is emotionally balanced, mature and calm.

Another equally important attribute is her ability to detach herself completely from work whenever she is outside of the hospital.

Because her work hours can often be unpredictable, Ms Ho makes the most of her free time by throwing herself into her hobbies, which include dancing, playing sport and watching movies.

She said that concentrating on other activities in her spare time helped ease the pressure of work and made her forget the sadness of the cases she had to deal with at the hospital.

Unwavering family support has also played a part in her ability to cope with her job.

Her family has never questioned her career choice and they are always understanding whenever she gets called to work unexpectedly.

On a personal level, rather than seeing her work as depressing, Ms Ho said that her career had helped her comprehend how precious life was and how valuable each day was.

On the list

Equipment needed

Phone book, phone, pager, antibacterial bag, cool box for organ storage, books on bereavement

Qualities needed

Calm, emotionally balanced, mature

Waiting list for

Kidney more than 1,300 on Hospital Authority list

Liver about 141 patients

Heart and lung more than 20 patients

Donation age range

Kidney 5-65; Liver under 75; Heart under 60; Cornea 0 to 80; Skin no age limit; Bone 16-60