The race for organ transplants sets 2 records in Vietnam

The “race” of white-shirted soldiers

On the fourth day after a successful heart transplant, Mr. MSH (37 years old, from Quang Binh) had positive changes, the new heart was functioning normally in this patient’s chest.

Before that, Mr. H. suffered from heart failure and spent 4 years waiting to find a suitable organ source. Prof. Dr. Pham Nhu Hiep – Director of Hue Central Hospital shared that the heart transplant for patient H. was a special event because in one day, the hospital’s medical team had to perform 3 transplants. organs in two places more than 1,000 km apart.

“This hospital’s heart transplant has set two new records. That is the shortest time to take the heart through Vietnam until the heart is beating again and the shortest operation time, “said Prof. Dr. Hiep.

Doctor CCII Tran Hoai An – Director of the Cardiovascular Center (Hue Central Hospital) recounted that on May 6, a team of experts from Hue Central Hospital was supporting and transferring kidney transplant techniques to the hospital. Nguyen Tri Phuong (HCMC) will join the doctors and nurses of this hospital to conduct 2 kidney transplants for the patient.

“From 6am, we started the kidney transplant for the first case. When preparing for a kidney transplant for the second case, it was also the time to take the heart from the donor (which was previously announced and coordinated by the National Center for Organ Transplantation).

The team of experts from Hue Central Hospital then had to divide human resources to both take the heart and transport it back to Hue for the patient on time, and together with the doctors of Nguyen Tri Phuong Hospital to perform surgery for the second case. Dr. An shared.

At 10:47 am on May 6, the donor’s heart left the ribcage and was strictly preserved, on the way to the airport, over 1,000 km to Hue to promptly transplant patient H.

For developed countries, the health sector transports organs by helicopter. Vietnam transports transplanted organs by civil aircraft.

One difficulty of transportation is that flights have fixed times. There is 1 flight in big cities every 30 minutes, and Hue has several trips a day.

So we have to calculate how to get the heart very close to the flight time so that the heart received in Ho Chi Minh City will return to Hue in the shortest time.

This may be a special case when the team performed a kidney transplant in Ho Chi Minh City in the morning, and a heart transplant in Hue in the afternoon.

“This event is like a race for time and space of white-shirted soldiers. Usually, doctors will do kidney or heart transplants, but few people have to perform 2 cases in a day,” said Dr. An. To share.

Moments bursting with happiness

At exactly 13:32 on May 6, the heart of the donor and the doctors and nurses of Hue Central Hospital arrived at Phu Bai airport (TT-Hue province). The entire team quickly moved the heart to the Cardiology Center to perform organ transplant surgery for patient H.

After 1 hour and 20 minutes of surgery, the heart was beating again in the recipient’s chest. After monitoring the progress, the indicators of the organs were stable and the patient’s health recovered well.

An, heart transplant surgery is a very complicated technique, requiring the coordination of many different specialties such as surgeons, anesthesiologists, resuscitators, and doctors running extracorporeal circulation. , including post-operative resuscitation nurses.

Another important step is that the nurse takes care of the resuscitation of the brain dead patient, although the patient is dead, the right care must be taken at that time to get the heart.

In addition to such direct implementation groups, there are testing systems and laboratories that are qualified to determine whether the patient’s kidney and liver indicators can withstand the transplant or not.

Another difficulty is that most of the patients waiting for a heart transplant are treated offline, far away, but Hue Central Hospital has made a list as well as prepared and arranged the surgery schedule in a very scientific and methodical manner, so it can be guaranteed. prescribed surgery time.

In addition, for the above continuous organ transplant cases, in addition to professional expertise, the individuals in the team must be in good health because the time to start taking the heart, transporting and performing surgery can be possible. lasted many hours.

“After a long process with the efforts of all departments and the close direction of the hospital’s Board of Directors, when seeing the donor’s heart beating in the recipient’s chest, all of them burst with joy, how much stress and fatigue are relieved”, said Doctor An.

Quang Thanh