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Elizabeth Cheung

Hong Kong’s rate of organ donation is among the lowest in the world, according to a Legislative Council study, which reported only 5.8 donors for every million people in the city. That would suggest at most a total of 42 donors.
That figure, for 2015, was a slight drop from that in 2013, which showed a rate of 6.1 per million people, despite continuous government efforts to got people to part with their organs.
The rate is around a seventh of those in countries such as Spain, which had 39.7 donors per million people, and Croatia, which has a rate of 39 per million.
The Legco study looked into the city’s current situation in organ donation, and successful methods for boosting the donation rate in other countries.
Last year, kidneys remained the most in-demand organ in Hong Kong, with 1,941 patients on the waiting list.
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Patients needing a renal transplant had to wait on average 51 months to get a new kidney.
And the number of people who died waiting for organ transplants increased slightly.
The number of those who died waiting for a lung transplant increased from one in 2011 to five last year, and the same number for people waiting for a liver rose from 27 to 31.
The study’s authors said there was no “conclusive evidence” that countries adopting an opt-out system – meaning everyone is considered a donor unless they specifically say they are not – had an effect on the number of donations.
But they did say setting up a dedicated authority for donations had been shown to increase donation rates in some countries.
For example in Spain, the rate increased from 14 donors per million in 1989 to 39.7 donors last year. The National Transplant Organisation , which coordinates organ donation in the country, was established in 1989.
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Hong Kong does not have a dedicated authority, or specific budget, to support donation.
Hospitals also do not have dedicated teams to identify potential donors earlier. The nine organ donation coordinators are responsible for seeking family consent for organ donations across the city’s 41 public hospitals, which raised concerns of “heavy workload” and “lack of formal coordination” in their work.
The Food and Health Bureau has launched a series of campaigns to promote awareness of organ donation, including setting up a promotion committee in April this year, after several high-profile organ donation appeals in the past year.
They included 19-year-old Jamella Lo, who required a double lung transplant after suffering primary pulmonary hypertension – a rare condition that affects three to four people in the city every year. She died after waiting for more than two weeks.


Hong Kong among world’s worst for organ donations

The government has recently launched campaigns to urge people to donate organs. Photo: Edward Wong

News

Hong Kong

Health & Environment

Figures suggest there were only 42 organ donors in city last year
