Calling all organ donors: Hong Kong needs you
The plight of a boy with a rare coronary condition has turned the spotlight on the city's organ donor programme, writes Rob McGovern
Jayden Oh has been through a lot for someone so young. In 2013, aged just five, he had a triple heart bypass, and while the surgery went well, he's still not out of danger. It's been a long and bumpy road for Jayden: on the one hand, his story credits the great support from Hong Kong's medical staff, but also exposes the dire state of its organ donor programme.
It's also been tough on Jayden's parents, British-born Dave and his Hong Kong wife Meko, who first noticed something wrong with their son when he was nine months old. He had a high fever, blood-shot eyes and a "strawberry tongue". He was diagnosed with Kawasaki disease (named after Tomisaku Kawasaki, the Japanese pediatrician who first identified the condition in 1961). It causes inflamed blood vessels, but its rarest and most serious effect is on the heart, where, if untreated, it can cause fatal aneurysms.
The government has done a lot to promote organ donation, but the number is still unsatisfactory.
Although the cause of the disease is still unknown, it is treatable and the mortality rate, even without treatment, is low.
In Jayden's case, however, the disease had a tight grip. He was given doses of intravenous immunoglobulin, but failed to respond. Although the disease subsided after about three weeks, the damage - two aneurysms in his coronary artery - was done.
His heart function was normal, so surgery was deemed unnecessary, particularly given his age. However, in June last year, his condition deteriorated. "He had extreme fatigue, no appetite, was vomiting. We took him to A&E and an echocardiogram showed low heart function; he was immediately admitted to the special care unit," says Meko.
His surgeon, Dr Tim Au Wing-kuk, chief of cardiothoracic surgery at Queen Mary Hospital, says Jayden had about one-fourth of normal heart function when he was admitted.