From the evening of January 3 to the afternoon of January 4, six operating rooms at the Viet Duc Friendship Hospital were lit up. Hundreds of surgeons raced against the clock to take the organs out of two brain-dead patients and conduct organ transplantation on six patients, having waited for donated organs for many days.

The operations were carried out after the hospital received an agreement on organ donation from the relatives of the brain-dead patients.

On the last days of 2023, Viet Duc Hospital received information from the emergency unit about two men who had suffered severe brain injuries. They were N.T.T, 25, from Thai Nguyen, and P.V.G, 32, from Phu Tho. 

Both had been involved in traffic accidents. They were forwarded to Viet Duc Hospital from district hospitals when they were in a deep coma.

After being informed by doctors about the condition of the patients, their relatives intended to take them home from the hospital. But they later changed their mind after doctors told them that their organs, if donated, would save the lives of many other people.

Two major surgeries were conducted within 24 hours at 8.40 pm on January 3 and 9.30 am on January 4. The donated organs and tissues included two hearts, two livers, four kidneys, two iliac vena cava, two tracheas, four corneas, and 11 tendon segments. Hundreds of doctors were mobilized to serve the special organ retrieval and transplantation operations.

Meanwhile, a cornea and liver were brought to Central Military Hospital 108 and Central Eye Hospital.

With the donated organs from two brain-dead people, two patients received a heart transplant, two other patients a liver transplant, four a kidney transplant, and four a cornea replacement.

Of the eight persons, there was an 8 year old who weighed only 18 kilograms. The patient was diagnosed with heart failure one year ago and had been waiting for a donated heart for half a year. Just two days before the heart transplant operation, she had finished the third internal medical treatment.

Her elder brother had suffered the same disease and had a heart transplant at Viet Duc Hospital three years ago. At that time, the boy was just seven years old, weighing 17 kilograms; he was the youngest patient in Vietnam to have a heart transplant. His current health condition is good and he goes to school every day, according to Nguyen Thi Lan Anh from the Cardiovascular Center.

Duong Duc Hung, director of Viet Duc Hospital, said it is rare in Vietnam that one family has two members with a heart transplant. In general, patients with this disease can live only until they are 15 years old because of the consequences of heart failure.

By the time the boy had his heart transplant, the hospital had conducted tests and found a gene related to myocarditis. Doctors concluded that his younger sister suffers from dilated cardiomyopathy. When the little girl showed signs of decompensated heart failure, she received intensive medical care and doctors prescribed heart transplantation.

The greatest challenge for surgeons who conducted the heart transplant operation was putting the heart of a young man weighing 45 kilograms into the thorax of a girl just eight years old and weighing 18 kilograms. However, the surgeons completed the operation successfully.

The girl is recovering after surgery with good signs. The other patients who received livers and kidneys are also recovering well and communicating with other people.

Dr Nguyen Quang Nghia, director of the Organ Transplantation Center under the Viet Duc Hospital, said Vietnamese surgeons have mastered most transplant techniques and technologies. Vietnam now can conduct complicated transplant operations with high quality.

There are 25 organ transplant centers in Vietnam, and one-quarter of organ transplant cases are performed at Viet Duc Friendship Hospital (300 cases a year). Hung said that in the near future, the hospital's surgeons will transplant trachea, lungs, and heart parts such as heart valves.

At Viet Duc Friendship Hospital, in the last five years, organs were donated from 107 brain-dead people. The figure was 154 nationwide. 

Vo Thu