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Fan Chen

Hong Kong is on track to record its lowest number of heart transplants since 2011, prompting doctors from the city’s only transplant team to urge residents to sign up for organ donation.
The latest data from the Hospital Authority showed only three hearts had been donated this year as of the end of September, with 74 patients on a waiting list.
The figure was well below the eight donations recorded in both 2023 and 2021, as well as the 11 in 2022. The highest levels in the past 13 years, the oldest available government data, were 17 donations each in 2012 and 2018.
Katherine Fan Yue-yan, a consultant of the cardiac medicine department at Grantham Hospital in Wong Chuk Hang, said doctors had originally expected to see the decline in donations during the Covid-19 pandemic.
“Even during Covid-19 we had some donations. At first we thought we wouldn’t conduct operations during the pandemic. But instead, we have very few this year,” she said.
Fan said cultural reasons were partly behind the generally low levels of organ donations.
“The concept of keeping the body intact after death remains strong for Asians,” she said.
“A successful organ donation could not only save a patient, but also an entire family.”
The criteria for deceased heart donors include being under 70 years old, having normal heart function and no history of heart disease.
She said organ donations were often made by patients with brainstem death. In such cases, families decide whether to donate organs.
Fan also said individuals interested in organ donation should discuss their intentions with family members.
The specialist is part of the city’s only heart transplant team, formed by doctors at Grantham Hospital and Queen Mary Hospital in Pok Fu Lam. Established 33 years ago, the team has completed 260 heart transplants.
The team has only performed four operations this year as of November 29, which is on track to be its lowest number in the past seven years. It was not immediately clear whether the fourth operation was for a local transplant, as the team also performs surgery using donations from mainland China.
One of those who has benefited from the team’s work is also Hong Kong’s second patient to have two transplants.

The 49-year-old, surnamed Fung, underwent surgery when she was only three years old to treat a heart defect, before having a follow-up operation at eight to install a pacemaker.
She received her first heart transplant in 2002 at age 27 and her second in October last year after showing symptoms of congestive heart failure.
Before the first surgery, she was too weak to even punch the paper files, Fung said.
“Doctors had told my mum she could not raise me for long because of my disease,” she said.
But Fung now enjoys playing table tennis and badminton, and has no problem walking more than 10,000 steps a day.
She said she planned to travel to Chengdu next month.
“I am grateful for the donors and their family, whose ideas have allowed us a group of patients on the verge of death to regain our lives,” Fung said.
“I hope that more caring people will be willing to donate organs, which can help other patients and their families.”
Organ donations have been in focus this year, with the Hospital Authority putting out multiple calls for organ donations for patients in urgent need.
One case involved a three-month-old girl who developed a condition of an enlarged heart chamber that has affected blood pumping to the rest of her body.
For the many patients still on the waiting list, two other options may provide some hope, according to Cally Ho Ka-lai, chief of service at the cardiothoracic surgery department of Queen Mary Hospital.
One is known as the Organ Care System, a device that evaluates a donor heart’s suitability and preserves it for a transplant.
Introduced in 2020 as Asia’s first and Hong Kong’s only heart preservation technology, the device has been used in four cases, with three resulting in successful transplants.
The other is aimed at the receiving patients and is called the Left Ventricular Assist Device. It acts as “a motor for the heart”, so patients no longer need to rely on their own heart as the device generates blood pressure and circulation.
“Most patients have to wait a long time for a suitable heart, counted by year,” Ho said. “With the Left Ventricular Assist Device, we have patients that have lived for another 10 years. Some even have it installed for life.”
The device had reduced the death rate among patients on the waiting list by 79 per cent, Ho noted. About 80 to 85 per cent of these patients are using the device, with an average wait time of two to three years to receive a heart.


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(From left) Cally Ho, surgery chief of service at Queen Mary Hospital’s department of cardiothoracic surgery, and Grantham Hospital consultant Katherine Fan with patient Ms Fung. Photo: Jonathan Wong

Katherine Fan (centre) says doctors originally expected to see the decline in donations during the Covid-19 pandemic. Photo: Jonathan Wong

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Chan Wai-ho is waiting for a life-saving heart transplant. Photo: Handout

Seriously-ill Chan Wai-ho and his wife are waiting for a suitable heart to be become available to save his life. Photo: Handout

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An organ donation information booth. The student earlier pleaded guilty to one count of criminal damage and had been remanded for two weeks. Photo: SCMP

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(From left) Dr Leung Ho-kei, department of obstetrics and gynaecology, Tuen Mun Hospital and Pok Oi Hospital; Dr Chong Yee-hung, chief executive of Pok Oi Hospital; Dr Wong Yiu-chung, chief executive of New Territories West Cluster and Dr Mak Siu-ming, department of clinical pathology at Tuen Mun Hospital and Pok Oi Hospital. Photo: Jelly Tse

News

Hong Kong

Doctors urge residents to sign up for organ donation as only three heart transplants performed this year as of September


Doctors urge residents to sign up for organ donation as only three heart transplants performed this year as of September.


Hong Kong society