Dying Hong Kong girl, 19, ‘too weak’ for double lung transplant as emotional appeal for donor goes unanswered
Major surgery has become out of the question as emotional appeal for donor goes unanswered
The condition of a dying 19-year-old girl who has been waiting for a lung donation for more than two weeks has deteriorated beyond the small window of opportunity for doctors to save her life.
Jamella Lo was in a critical and unstable condition at Queen Mary Hospital in Pok Fu Lam yesterday, with a spokeswoman saying the teen had become too weak to undergo a double lung transplant - without which a doctor had said she would die.
"Even if a pair of new lungs finally comes by, it is not likely that she can go through the transplant as her condition now is too unstable," the hospital spokeswoman said.
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Lo discovered only last month that she had primary pulmonary hypertension, a condition affecting just three or four people in Hong Kong a year.
Doctors had said she might have as little as 48 hours to live. Her family made an emotional public appeal on September 27, hoping someone would donate the organs of a deceased loved one.
Her condition briefly stabilised after two days, but still no donation was forthcoming.
The spokeswoman said Lo's condition took a turn for the worse at the weekend, rendering her unsuitable for any major operation.
In the last few days, Secretary for Food and Health Dr Ko Wing-man had appealed repeatedly for members of the public to donate the organs of deceased family members to save Lo's life.
But Dr Timmy Au Wing-kuk, the hospital's chief of cardiothoracic surgery, said a double-lung donation was always hard to come by.
For about every 10 organ donation cases, only five to six pairs of lungs were fit for transplant. The lungs not only had to fit the recipient's blood type and be in good working condition, but also had to be free of pneumonia and infection.
Au said Lo's condition was "slowly going downhill" and that it was "very, very unlikely" she would undergo transplant surgery as "she is too ill now".
He said 11 lung transplants had been conducted this year.
