Race against time: six kidney transplants in four days sets Hong Kong medical record
Three female kidney donors give new life to six patients over four days
A specialist medical team at the Prince of Wales Hospital has proved that it can beat the desperate race against time to harvest organs from donors.
Between March 12 and March 15, kidneys from three brain-dead female patients were transplanted to six patients, aged between 29 and 59, with terminal kidney diseases.
Speed is of the essence in transplants from donors who have lost their brain functions and have been declared dead, as the organs can go bad quickly once blood stops flowing to them. Medication is also needed to maintain the blood circulation in brain-dead donors' bodies before the organs are removed.
"Hong Kong has never performed six kidney transplants within four days … we hope more people are willing to donate organs," said Dr Philip Li Kam-tao, chief of nephrology at the hospital in Sha Tin.
The previous record was five kidney transplants within eight days in 2007 and 2012.
The 96-hour marathon of transplants involved 10 hospital departments in the New Territories East cluster, and a total of 370 medical staff operating in shifts.
The team described the operations as a "race against time", as the kidneys must be transplanted within 16 hours of the donor's death. "If the time is over, recoverability of the kidney would be greatly affected, and the kidney might be totally unusable," Li said.
Apart from kidneys, the three deceased women also donated their livers, lungs, corneas and bones, benefiting some 30 patients.
Ip Siu-lin, a 59-year-old patient with nephritis, an inflammation of the kidneys, was given a second chance at life after waiting for more than 10 years.
"I have never imagined the day [I would receive a new kidney] … I have done peritoneal dialysis for 12 years and gone numb," Ip said through tears. "I am really grateful to the donor and her family."
Before the transplant, she was unable to travel and could not sleep well as she had to do dialysis every six hours. "I really want to go for a trip now," said Ip. She wants to travel to the US to visit friends with her family.
Ng Ka-kit, who has been on the waiting list for a transplant since July 2010, is glad to have a new pair of shoes again after receiving a new kidney. "My foot used to swell and I could not wear shoes, so I did not care how broken my shoes were. Last night I bought a new pair of shoes as my foot no longer swells," the 46-year-old animator said.
The roughly 1,900 kidney patients in the city have to wait an average of 50 months for a transplant. In recent years, the number of kidneys from deceased donors has declined. In 2012, there were 84 donated kidneys. There were just 63 last year.
In the first three months of this year, 24 kidneys from deceased donors and four from live donors have been transplanted. The medical team hoped that that rate could be sustained, and around 100 kidneys could be donated by the end of the year.
