Children’s Hospital 2 in Ho Chi Minh City is struggling with a severe shortage of organ donors, with over 100 children waiting for liver transplants and two dying each month from end-stage liver failure.

In the first nine months of 2024, Vietnam saw an unprecedented increase in organ transplants from brain-dead donors, with 87 organs transplanted from 25 donors, marking a new milestone in the country’s 32-year organ transplant history.

A 41-year-old man with severe heart, liver, and kidney failure has become the first patient in Vietnam to undergo a successful simultaneous heart and liver transplant.

A 65-year-old blind woman from Thai Nguyen was given a precious gift, as a donated cornea helped her regain her sight after a decade of blindness.

On the afternoon of September 10, Saint Paul General Hospital in Hanoi held a discharge ceremony for two patients who had received kidney transplants from a brain-dead donor.

In an unprecedented operation, a heart traveled 1,000 kilometers from Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City, where it was transplanted into a patient, marking a milestone achievement thanks to the coordinated efforts of over 100 dedicated professionals.

The shortage of donors and the prevalence of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease remain significant challenges in realising the full potential of lung transplants in Việt Nam.

Vietnam recorded about 1,000 people receiving organ transplants in 2023, making Vietnam a country with the most people receiving organ transplants in Southeast Asia.

On the evening of June 20, at Phu Tho Hospital, a very special humane action took place: the doctors bowed their heads in gratitude to a brain-dead man before starting an operation to remove two of his kidneys to be transplanted into two patients.

Six years after her daughter Hai An, died, her mother continues to believe that her daughter is still by her side.

About 86,000 individuals have registered to donate their organs after death in the last 10 years in Vietnam.

Repressing her pain and sadness, a mother from Quang Ninh was willing to donate the organs of her brain-dead son, a move which saved the life of seven people.

The success of the surgery on April 22 has been a great landmark in Việt Nam’s healthcare field

The first pediatric organ transplant centre in Vietnam’s southern region is scheduled to be put into operation on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Liberation of the South and National Reunification Day (April 30, 1975 - 2025).

Over the past 20 years, more than 1,800 patients have received kidney transplants at Viet Duc Friendship Hospital. The survival and living-well rates after 10 years is over 85 percent, higher than other reports in the rest of the world.

The health sector has made great strides in the performance of organ transplants.

The number of donated organs from brain-dead people per year in Vietnam is just equal to 1/110 of the number in South Korea and 1/500 in Spain.

Doctors at the National Military Hospital 108 (Hospital 108) have just successfully performed a liver transplant with incompatible blood types on a 15-year-old girl.

From 100 brain-dead donors, the Vietnam-Germany Friendship Hospital’s doctors have successfully performed 50 heart, 83 liver, 157 kidneys, six lung transplants and many other tissue transplants.