Belgium aids Vietnam’s first liver transplant
A two-year-old is receiving a liver transplant today that began at 8am at HCMC’s Pediatrics Hospital II, the first of its kind in Vietnam.
The 8-12 hour surgery on the young patient is the culmination of four years of preparation with the help of Belgian experts.
Around 60 professors, doctors, and medical experts from the Pediatrics Hospital II, along with HCMC’s Binh Dan, Nhan Dan Gia Dinh Hospital and from Belgium’s Clinical University of Saint-Luc will take part in the surgery, which was financed by the city.
Nguyen Hong Thu, director of the hospital said that for the past four years, the hospital had sent its doctors to France and Belgium for short and long term courses and that its facilities had been updated for the surgery.
The patient, a two-year-old girl whose mother is the liver donor, suffers from congenital biliary atresia or bile-duct blockage. Until the liver transplant is available, the youth had a palliative Kasai-poroenterostomy operation, transforming a loop of her intestine into a pipe to drain the bile from her liver.
In October and November this year, Belgian doctors and experts from the Vietnamese Ministry of Health came to the hospital to check on the final preparations and were pleased with the results.
Learning curve
Doctor Tran Dong A, the hospital’s deputy director, shuttled from Belgium and Vietnam for the past years to learn from the foreign country’s transplant methods. Since early 2005, he has replayed twice a week to his staff a video clips featuring Belgium’s liver transplant surgery.
Vice Chairman of HCMC People’s Committee and head of the city liver transplants, Nguyen Thanh Tai asked the media to dim the media spotlight prior to the surgery for fear doctors in charge were under stress.
The hospital will also perform another similar surgery on a seven-month-old patient who suffers from the same condition.
Liver transplants, more complicated than that of the kidney, are extremely challenging when performed on children.
By Thanh Tung - Thanh Nien - December 5, 2005.
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