Hong Kong has logged a record high of more than 360,000 registered organ donors as public awareness has improved, the acting secretary for health has said as the city marked Organ Donation Day.
Libby Lee Ha-yun said on Saturday that there were more than 2,000 people on the waiting list for organ donations and appealed for more people to register to potentially give the gift of life.
“The number of registered organ donors has reached a new high and it has increased a lot compared to May,” she said at a ceremony to celebrate Organ Donation Day.
“I believe that the awareness of the entire Hong Kong society about organ donation and transplant has improved.”
Hong Kong in 2016 declared the second Saturday in November every year as Organ Donation Day in a bid to increase knowledge and support for life-saving donations.
Chok Lai-kwan, 61, said her husband, who was in his 60s, died of a brain haemorrhage last year and his liver was transplanted into a patient in need.
She said he had never considered the process before but an organ donation coordinator approached the family and explained the procedures after her husband’s death.
Chok said she and her two sons agreed, although her daughter at first had some problems and concerns about the idea, but eventually came round.
“She loved her father very much and didn’t want to see surgery on his body after he died,” Chok explained.
“It is painful to have a family member leave us, but it is beautiful that their love will always be there in this world.”
Chok added she was now prepared to donate her organs after she died.
Hong Kong doctor urges residents to become donors as kidney transplant rate drops
Hong Kong doctor urges residents to become donors as kidney transplant rate drops
Organ recipient Fok Wai-ha, 60, said her life was transformed after she was given a donated lung five years ago.
She said she contracted swine flu 14 years ago and ended up in an intensive care unit.
Her condition did not improve much, despite years of treatment, and she had to rely on a ventilator to help her breathe until she had the lung transplant.
Fok said the procedure not only improved her health but also allowed her to try different sports such as lawn bowls and darts and came to know other organ recipients.
She added she, her son and daughter had now registered as organ donors.
The new high of people on the register came after the city’s organ donor list saw a spike in withdrawal applications in May, which sparked a police investigation into suspected abuse of the system.
The surge in withdrawals was recorded after the government in December said it hoped to establish a cross-border donation system with mainland China, after a four-month-old Hong Kong girl was saved after she was given a heart which came from across the border.
Hong Kong to benefit from proposed organ donation scheme with mainland: experts
Hong Kong to benefit from proposed organ donation scheme with mainland: experts
The Department of Health, which manages the organ donation register, said it had noticed some “abnormalities” in the figures on withdrawals.
The register’s website had 5,785 withdrawal applications between December and April, “significantly higher” than in the past.
But 2,905 of the applications involved people who had never registered as organ donors or made more than one withdrawal request.
The remainder, 2,880 applications, was still a more than twofold increase from the 1,068 received over the whole of 2022.
Authorities said they could not rule out that “a small number of people” had filed requests with the aim of “disrupting the representativeness of the centralised organ donation register and increasing the administrative burden on government personnel”.