(04-09-2007)
by Nguyen Minh Huyen
Bone marrow transplant surgery at the National Paediatrics Hospital. The Gift of Life live music show will be held on September 18 to raise funds for organ transplants at the hospital. — VNA/VNS Photo Huu Oai
Ha Noi — For children awaiting organ transplants at the National Paediatrics Hospital every day they have to wait longer is a question of life or death.
It is not just a shortage of organs that is the problem, as it is in many countries, but a lack of funds is also delaying transplant procedures.
For this reason, hospital managers set up the Gift of Life Fund in 2005, and mobilised their staff to visit companies, organisations and businesses, to ask for donations to pay for transplant operations for poor children who needed the surgery. The fund raising campaign culminated in a charity music show in May that year, with more than VND1.2 billion (US$75,000) was raised.
The event will be repeated again this year, and as previously, ahead of the event, doctors and nurses at the hospital, as well as youth union members, are rushing around trying to raise as much money as they can.
To donate to the Gift of Life Fund, contact:
Trinh Ngoc Hai, Administrative Office HeadThe National Paediatrics Hospital18/879 La Thanh Road, Dong Da District, Ha NoiTel: 047755335/0903225892Fax: 047754448Account number: 934 01 011 at the Ba Dinh Treasury, Ha NoiOr please visit the hospital’s website for more information at http://www.benhviennhitu.org.vn/
The Gift of Life live music show, to be held at the Municipal Opera House on September 18 and broadcast live on the Viet Nam Multimedia Corporation (VTC1) channel, will consolidate their efforts.
Most of the children who will benefit from the Gift of Life Fund are being treated for liver or kidney failure or leukaemia. Deputy Director of the hospital Tran Phan Duong said the event was being held not only to raise funds for operations, but also to encourage society to empathise with these needy children, and do something to make their lives a little brighter.
"We at the hospital are responsible for treating patients only, but this is a humanitarian act, so we are doing all we can to raise society’s awareness, and change attitudes so that people will care for these sick and poor children," Duong said.
The Law on Human Tissue and Organ Donation, which makes it legal for individuals and non-governmental organisations to set up tissue and organ banks, should make more organs available. However, the law only came into effect last July and it is impossible to say yet whether it is having this effect or not. But regardless of the number of organs available, the lack of funds for transplant operations is still a pressing issue.
A kidney transplant operation costs about VND300 million ($18,700), for liver transplants the cost is double — VND600 million; a bone marrow transplant costs VND400 million ($25,000), and these figures do not include the cost of the medication and medical care needed before and after surgery.
Many patients who have been recommended for kidney transplant, have already had dialysis. Each dialysis session costs about VND350,000, and three sessions are required per week. So, with a monthly cost of about VND4 million ($250), it is easy for the families to use up all their savings, before they get to the transplant stage.
After the transplant, immune-suppressants must be taken everyday for the rest of the patient’s life to stop the body rejecting the new organ. The drugs cost VND3 to 5 million ($200 to 300) a month.
It is extremely difficult for families with average incomes to pay that kind of money, and for poor households it is almost impossible.
Until now the hospital has picked up the bill for transplant operations when it could not pass it on to the State funding or heath insurance system, but it cannot keep doing this forever, Duong said. "Any fund runs out of money if it is not constantly replenished," he aptly pointed out.
This is where the Gift of Life Fund comes in. So far, more than a dozen needy children have had their kidney, liver and marrow transplants paid for by the fund. "We had to distribute a little to each case otherwise it would have only been enough for just two cases," Duong said.
Still, Duong said, it does not matter how much people donate, as everyone gives as much as their circumstances will allow. But even the smallest gift shows that the giver cares for children, he said recalling a vegetable seller in central Nghe An Province who donated all the money she had made that day — a total of VND55,000 ($3).
Lives count down
Le Ngoc Hoang, 17, is from Nong Cong District in central Thanh Hoa Province. Hoang was rushed to hospital last October when he vomited blood. Doctors at the Paediatrics Hospital concluded that Hoang had cirrhosis, which caused swelling of the liver and spleen and portal hypertension. He had an emergency operation and since then Hoang has had to go to Ha Noi for check-ups every one or two months.
"We give him drugs to prevent the swelling and portal hypertension," said doctor Ho Thi Hien, deputy head of the Digestion Ward. "But that is only a palliative measure, in his case, it is just a matter of time before he needs a liver transplant."
Hoang’s parents, Le Ngoc Cung and Nguyen Thi Binh, are both farmers. Asked if they could pay VND600 million ($37,500) for Hoang’s future liver transplant, his mother Binh said in tears: "We don’t know what to do, where on earth can we farmers get that much money?"
Doctor Hien said that many of the cases she was treating now, would eventually need liver transplants. For instance, the Kasai operation to restore biliary flow is only a temporary treatment for patients with biliary atresia, a condition in new-born infants, in which the common bile duct between the liver and the small intestine is blocked or absent. "In this case, liver transplant is needed in the first years of the patient’s life," Hien said.
Treatment for liver failure caused by Wilson’s disease is also a transplant. The liver of a person who has Wilson’s disease does not release copper into the bile as it should, and the build-up of copper in the body damages the liver, kidneys, brain and eyes.
In cases of acute poisoning with mushrooms or drugs leading to liver failure, a transplant is also needed to save the person’s life.
Meanwhile, at the Clinical Haematology Ward, Nguyen Mai Duyen from the northern Thai Nguyen Province was taking her 8-year-old son Tran Quoc Huy to do a series of tests to prepare for a bone marrow transplant.
Huy was diagnosed with leukaemia and has been receiving chemotherapy since last November. However, the disease is not reacting to the treatment as quickly as it needs to and doctors have recommended a bone marrow transplant for Huy. His sister will be the donor.
"Health insurance does not cover the costs for organ donors [such as tests, and drugs to take before, during, and after the surgery], so the hospital has to take that money from its Gift of Life Fund," Tran Van Hoc from the Planning Office explained.
Doctor Professor Tran Dinh Long, head of the Nephrology Ward, said he had about 20 patients waiting for kidney transplants and two scheduled for transplants in the next week or two.
Because donors and recipients need at least 60 tests each, doctors often let the patients go home to prevent them catching infections at the hospital and to relax before the operation. "Come here next week you’ll meet plenty," Long said, hurrying to a patient’s room.
Deputy Director Duong said the hospital plans to turn the Gift of Life fund raising activity into a regular event, and hopes to raise as much ahead of the charity music show on September 18 as in 2005.
The show will be held one week before the mid-autumn Moon Festival. It is a Vietnamese tradition to present gifts to children on this occasion, and there is no better gift than the gift of life. — VNS
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