The reason why organ donation from brain-dead people has not increased in the past 10 years

Currently, only 6/26 organ transplant hospitals nationwide perform brain death diagnosis for organ donation. Therefore, in addition to hospitals establishing advisory groups to have people to advocate and advise families of patients with brain death prognosis to donate organs, it is necessary to calculate a development roadmap to expand the organ donation network.

The first organ harvesting operation from a brain-dead donor was performed at the Vietnam - Sweden Hospital in Uong Bi, Quang Ninh.

On the afternoon of April 8, the National Organ Transplant Coordination Center informed the press about the coordination of multiple organs of brain-dead patients from provincial hospitals.

According to Mr. Dong Van He, Director of the National Organ Transplant Coordination Center, currently, only 6/26 organ transplant hospitals in the country have performed brain death diagnosis for organ and tissue donation. This is one of the reasons why the rate of brain death organ and tissue donation in Vietnam is very low and has not increased in the past 10 years.

Therefore, implementing brain death diagnosis and resuscitation at hospitals that have not yet performed organ transplants following the model of developed countries is the direction of the National Organ Transplant Coordination Center.

Mr. Dong Van He said that at the end of March, the Vietnam - Sweden Hospital in Uong Bi, Quang Ninh, a provincial hospital that has not yet transplanted organs, for the first time performed a brain death diagnosis to take tissue and organs from brain-dead patients for organ donation, which is an important milestone in building the core, forming and expanding the organ donation network nationwide that the center has been working hard to build over the past time.

In fact, after 1 year of piloting the establishment of a network of 16 hospitals to mobilize organ and tissue donations, the center has supported 4 hospitals to successfully implement brain death diagnosis, resuscitation and organ and tissue donation. Up to now, the families of 33 brain-dead cases have been mobilized to donate organs and tissues. Meanwhile, 450 hospitals of the same scale in the past year have only mobilized 2 cases to agree to donate organs and tissues. Therefore, mobilizing organ and tissue donations from lower-level hospitals is valuable in increasing the source of organs donated by brain-dead donors.

Need to improve diagnostic and resuscitation capacity for brain-dead patients who donate organs

According to Deputy Minister of Health Tran Van Thuan, the model of building a hospital network to mobilize organ and tissue donation is very suitable for Vietnam's conditions and needs to be replicated. Therefore, in addition to hospitals establishing consulting teams to have people to mobilize and advise families of patients with brain-dead prognosis to donate organs, the National Organ Transplant Coordination Center needs to calculate a suitable development roadmap to expand the network.

Meanwhile, Mr. Duong Duc Hung, Director of Viet Duc Hospital, said that to increase the number of brain-dead organ donors, a single hospital cannot do it, but must have a nationwide network from the grassroots to the upper levels. Each hospital must start this with training and communication so that every medical staff can be a volunteer to promote organ donation.

NGUYEN QUOC

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