Hong Kong doctors issue lung donation appeal to save young woman whose life hangs in the balance
- Ng Lok-ching, 24, fights for survival on life support after her lungs and heart stopped working
- She does not want to die, says mother, vowing to stand by her ‘until the last moment’
Doctors in Hong Kong have issued an emergency appeal for a lung donation to save the life of a 24-year-old woman with a rare medical condition.
Ng Lok-ching’s lungs and heart have stopped working and she has been on life support at Queen Mary Hospital since last Saturday.
In an emotional plea for help, her mother said she was fighting for survival and did not want to die.
Ng was diagnosed with pulmonary veno-occlusive disease (PVOD), which causes blockages in the veins of her lungs and heart failure.
“The only cure for this condition is a lung transplant,” said Eric Tse Wai-choi, a clinical professor at the University of Hong Kong’s faculty of medicine.
Her case was the most urgent of all patients waiting to receive a transplant in the city, doctors said.
Queen Mary Hospital in Pok Fu Lam is the only institution in Hong Kong capable of performing lung transplants. More than two dozen patients are waiting there for the procedure.
The transplant could only come from a deceased patient whose blood type and body weight matched the patient’s profile, doctors said. Long waiting times and post-surgery complications faced those needing the operations, said Yan See-wan, a consultant at Grantham Hospital in Hong Kong.
