Life-saving liver goes to waste

A donor liver that could have saved the life of a dying patient has been wasted because of a lack of resources at Hong Kong's public hospitals to carry out the transplant, a South China Morning Post investigation has discovered.

The Hospital Authority confirmed the donated liver went to waste, but director of professional services and public affairs Dr Ko Wing-man insisted such a situation 'could happen at any transplant centre' due to limited resources.

Patients and transplant doctors alike were outraged to learn that the liver was not used to save one of the 100 people in Hong Kong on the list for the life-saving surgery. Forty per cent of them will die while waiting for surgery.

The head of one of Hong Kong's two transplant teams said cost-cutting within the Hospital Authority had 'gone so far that human lives are not a concern any more'.

The donor organ was wasted on June 16 and the transplant team say the blunder stemmed from a new Hospital Authority policy to cap the number of liver transplants conducted at the Prince of Wales Hospital.

At present, there are two queues for liver transplants in Hong Kong - one at a centre operated by the Chinese University at the Prince of Wales Hospital in Sha Tin, and another by the University of Hong Kong at the Queen Mary Hospital in Pokfulam.