At present, 95% of the transplants inthe country use organs from living donors and only 5% from brain-dead donors,which completely runs counter to the global trend, in which the majority is transplantsfrom brain-dead donors, Assoc. Prof. Dong Van He, Deputy Director of the VietDuc (Vietnam - Germany) Friendship Hospital and Director of the NationalCoordinating Centre for Human Organ Transplants, told a ceremony announcing thedecision on the centre director appointment on August 8.
In Vietnam, an estimated 10 peopledie each day while waiting for organ transplants. Meanwhile, it is worryingthat less than 30% of doctors and 20% of nurses have gained sufficientunderstanding of brain death, and many do not have any knowledge about this.
These are challenges that must beaddressed in the time ahead, and the system of 22 organ transplant centres alongwith hospitals nationwide need to make changes to encourage brain-dead organdonations, He said.
The National Coordinating Centre forHuman Organ Transplants is the first unit in the country to form a list ofpatients waiting for transplants, and nearly 50,000 people have registered fororgan donation after death or brain death./.