When Hong Kong’s first heart transplant gave a civil servant a new lease of life and made him ‘more lovable’
- In December 1992, a 50-year-old civil servant underwent Hong Kong’s first heart transplant
- The recipient was looking forward to dancing with his wife again, and said his change of heart had made him more lovable
“Hongkong’s first heart transplant operation was performed at the Grantham Hospital yesterday,” reported the South China Morning Post on December 19, 1992. “The hospital’s chief executive, Dr Leung Sau-chi, confirmed that surgery lasting 4½ hours had been performed on a local man, who was doing as well as can be expected. He received the heart of a local donor, also a Chinese male, who died at the Queen Mary Hospital yesterday.”
The next day, December 20, 1992, the Post revealed the recipient was a 50-year-old civil servant with terminal coronary heart disease, and that “a Hongkong couple has helped make medical history after they agreed to donate the organs of their 21-year-old son for transplants”.
On New Year’s Eve, the donor was identified as Ng Kin-fai, and his father, Ng Wing-nin, said: “I feel better knowing that my son has helped others.”
On March 29, 1993, the heart-transplant recipient, a “Mr Chiu”, said that “as soon as the doctors give me the green light, my wife and I will be tripping the light fantastic at a posh nightclub, or better still at my department’s annual dinner.”
“It will be good to be able to indulge again in our favourite pastime. We haven’t done that since my first heart attack almost four years ago.”
“Mr Chiu, who has a 10-year-old daughter, conceded that before his life-saving surgery on December 18 he had been ‘hard to live with’. ‘I was so irritable and miserable all the time. Now I’m more lovable. Just ask my wife’.”
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The initial Post article had reported that the secretary for health and welfare, Elizabeth Wong Chien Chi-lien, “appealed in the Legislative Council for members to sign their donor cards and set a good example for the public […] We need every individual in the community to participate […] The best gift to give at Christmas and New Year is to give a life.”
