Hanoi launches organ donation registration campaign

The Hanoi Department of Health, in coordination with the Vietnam Association for Advocacy of Tissue and Human Organ Donation, held a ceremony on May 20 to launch the movement promoting organ and tissue donation.

Speaking at the event, Nguyen Trong Dien, director of the Hanoi Department of Health, said doctors in the capital have mastered many highly specialised and complex transplant techniques.

However, he stressed that the greatest obstacle facing Vietnam’s transplant sector remains the severe shortage of donated organs.

Despite the challenge, Dien expressed optimism as the number of registered organ donors has risen sharply in recent years.

“If in 2024 Vietnam had only around 86,000 registered organ donors, the figure has now nearly doubled to almost 178,000,” he said.

Providing further insight into the country’s transplant sector, Nguyen Dinh Hung, deputy director of the Hanoi Department of Health, said Vietnam has made significant progress since the country’s first successful kidney transplant in 1992 at the Military Medical Academy.

Vietnam now has nearly 30 modern transplant centres operating nationwide from north to south, offering life-saving treatment to patients suffering from chronic kidney disease, liver failure, heart failure and corneal damage.

However, Hung noted that the most serious challenge remains the limited number of tissue and organ donations from brain-dead donors.

Scientifically, a single brain-dead donor can save more than 10 lives through organ donation, he said.

During the ceremony, the Hanoi Department of Health officially launched a campaign encouraging organ and tissue donor registration across the capital.

At the event, leaders from the health sector and major hospitals also registered as organ donors and received official donor registration cards.