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Cheng Ka-yan (left), manager of Grantham Hospital’s cardiac medicine ward, with transplant patients Tony Tsang and Allen Mar. Photo: Yik Yeung-man

‘I felt like I was waiting to die’: Hong Kong organ transplant recipients in heartfelt plea over withdrawals from donation register

  • Nearly 6,000 residents have applied to withdraw from city’s centralised organ donation register in recent months, although many never on list
  • Patients like Tony Tsang and Allen Mar have had lives turned around by new hearts, but many stuck on waiting list for years

Tony Tsang Wing-hang, a 71-year-old retiree, recalls not having the strength to get up from his bed because of heart disease.

“I could not sleep or walk. Breathing was difficult for me. I felt like I was waiting to die,” he said.

Tsang received a defibrillator implant more than 20 years ago after being diagnosed with arrhythmia. But as years went by, his heart function greatly deteriorated to the point where even simple daily tasks required strenuous effort.

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“The doctor said a normal person’s heart function was about 70 to 80 per cent. My heart function had dropped from roughly 60 per cent to as low as 10 per cent,” he said.

Around eight years ago, Tsang was given the opportunity to apply for a heart transplant but he still had to wait for a suitable donor.

“The Hospital Authority has an age limit for heart transplants and I had only seven months before becoming ineligible,” he said. “It was hard for me. I was wondering how I could continue to live my life. In that situation, my heart might not have survived another year.”

Fortunately, around a year after his application, Tsang received a call from the hospital one night telling him that a suitable donor had been found.

Tony Tsang says anyone can end up needing an organ transplant. Photo: Yik Yeung-man

“It was like I had come back to life after being on the brink of death,” he said.

But hope for patients like Tsang might be dwindling after the organ donation register was recently hit by a wave of withdrawals.

The Health Bureau earlier found that 5,785 residents applied to withdraw from the city’s centralised register between last December and April this year. But more than half of the residents involved had never signed up or made repeated attempts to withdraw.

The bureau said the figure was “significantly higher” than in the past, adding that it suspected some people had deliberately lodged their invalid withdrawal applications with the aim of disrupting the register.

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The unusual spike followed a four-month-old girl becoming the first Hongkonger to receive a heart donated from mainland China last December. The government then proposed setting up a transplant scheme with authorities across the border.

The proposed mechanism would act as a “second-tier” response which would only be used if no suitable patients could be matched with the organs locally.

Cheng Ka-yan, manager of Grantham Hospital’s cardiac medicine ward, said 80 patients across the city were waiting for a heart transplant as of the end of March. But only eight to 11 donor hearts were available every year from 2019 to 2022.

What’s behind wave of withdrawals from Hong Kong organ donor register?

“For heart transplants, we do not accept donors who are too old,” Cheng said.

“We need to go through a very detailed evaluation for heart transplants. Even when there are people who are willing to donate their organs including heart, lungs, liver and kidney, they may be unsuitable for a heart transplant.”

She said factors such as blood type, height and weight could determine the suitability of heart transplants and a number of patients died every year before a match could be made.

When businessman Allen Mar Cheong-chor, 61, was first diagnosed with heart-related issues seven years ago, he had only 30 per cent of his regular heart function left. He was lucky enough to receive a heart transplant after a four-year wait.

Allen Mar waited four years before receiving a heart transplant. Photo: Yik Yeung-man

“It was severe and I could have died any time,” he said. “My new heart did not come easily … My first impression [after the transplant] was that I’m being transformed into a new person.”

Responding to the wave of withdrawals from the organ donation register, Mar said patients in desperate need of transplants needed more support from the public.

“What you help is not only the patient’s life, but also the whole family, friends and the whole community,” he said. “We should put ourselves in the shoes of patients and think about what they need.”

Tsang, who is now the president of Hong Kong Heart Transplant Patients Association, also said: “Everyone has to leave the world someday. When your organs are still working, why not pass them on to someone else in need?

“A signature [at the organ donation register] can make a huge difference. Anyone can end up needing an organ transplant.”

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