A moribund young Vietnamese girl with cancer had allowed her corneas to be given to someone in need before she died on Thursday. The donor, seven years and three months old, was diagnosed with a type of nervous system cancer in September 2017. Prior to her death on the afternoon of February 22, the family made a phone call to the Vietnam National Coordinating Center for Human Organ Transplantation around noon expressing her wish to donate her eye components, according to Nguyen Huu Hoang, director of the Eye Bank at Vietnam’s Central Eye Hospital. After she died, Hoang and technicians from the Eye Bank arrived at the hospital where she had been treated. “Give sight to another person, will you?” her mother told her before kissing her on the forehead. Hoang said that this is the most poignant cornea-giving case he has seen during the past ten years. At the time of the removal, “tears clogged my throat. The girl looked as if she was sleeping like an angel, and I began my job in the gentlest and most careful way so as not to wake her from her slumber,” he said. “I’m proud of you,” the mother said while looking at her daughter after the technicians had completed the collection. The child, whose mother is a worker in public health, lived in Hanoi, according to Hoang. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam!
Statistics also shows that currently, about 300,000 Vietnamese patients have become blind due to corneal diseases, with around 15,000 more each year. The only treatment for these conditions is cornea transplant surgery.... [read more]
Two men received corneas donated by a 93-year-old woman before she died with the transplants done by the Central Eye Hospital Tuesday. Pham Thi Nhan, a farmer in the northern Ninh Binh province, became the second Vietnamese to donate corneas and the first after the Law on Donation of Body Organs took effect July 1. In April another woman, Nguyen Thi Hoa, 81, also from the same province, gave her corneas which were successfully transplanted on to two women. Vietnam has some 300,000 people blind from corneal diseases, 100,000 of them without sight in either eye. But the country's sole…... [read more]
Nearly 40,000 people sign up to donate corneas Nearly 40,000 people have registered to donate their corneas to the Eye Bank, which has already received 461 corneas from 235 people in the past five years, according to the Viet Nam National Institute of Ophthalmology (VNIO). Viet Nam currently has around 30,000 people suffering from cornea-related blindness in need of cornea transplants, according to VNIO estimates. The institute honoured 37 families and individuals yesterday for their outstanding contributions to the development of the Eye Bank and cornea donation mobilisation. Court sentences four for forging passports The Ha Noi People's Court on…... [read more]
The Hanoitimes - Vietnam cut child deaths by 2.4 million and maternal deaths by about 70,000 compared to 1990 mortality rates. Vietnam is one of 10 nations that has successfully reduced child and maternal deaths. It cut under-five mortality by 60 percent from 58 to 23.2 per 1,000 live births between 1990 and 2012. This amounted to saving the lives of 23.4 million children. At the same time it cut maternal mortality by 70 percent from 233 to 69 per 100,000 live births - a saving of 70,000 lives. The country increased coverage of births attended by trained health workers…... [read more]
Over 150 health officials from the Central Eye Hospital yesterday registered to donate their corneas after death for transplant programs and scientific study. This is the first time the hospital saw such a large number of cornea donors from the hospital staff. There are currently 28 people registered in the cornea donation program. According to the hospital's Vice Director Hoang Minh Chau, the technique used to perform cornea transplant surgery was developed in the 1950s but due to the lack of corneas, many patients had to wait for years to have the surgery. Mr. Chau also said that due to…... [read more]
