HK Organs Unlikely To End Up On The Mainland: HA

The Hospital Authority (HA) on Tuesday said organs donated by Hong Kong citizens are unlikely to end up on the mainland under a proposed cross-border organ-matching scheme.

Professor Philip Li of the Prince of Wales Hospital said this is because there are not enough donations in Hong Kong to match the needs of patients waiting for transplants here.

"In the past four years, for example, all the donated kidneys had been used in patients in Hong Kong, but obviously, for the overall scheme, we never can exclude the possibility that an organ, after the first search in Hong Kong, is not used because of various reasons," he said.

"Then, the whole point of the scheme is that such [an] organ will not be wasted and will be used to serve other people, and the same thing occurs across the border."

Professor Li added that there are over 2,200 patients currently waiting for kidney transplants in Hong Kong, but only about 50 kidney donations are made each year.

Professor Albert Chan from Queen Mary Hospital, meanwhile, clarified that donated organs from the mainland would be arranged for patients in Hong Kong only if they do not match with any mainland patients, adding there are about 1,100 such cases each year.

He said the declining number of donations in Hong Kong may lower the possibility of organ-matching, but unused organs from the mainland could potentially be used to help meet the needs of patients in the territory.