On June 27, the National Coordinating Center for Body parts transplantation organized a workshop to collect comments on the draft law amending and supplementing a number of articles of the Law on inheritance, collection, transplantation of human tissues and body parts and donation of bodies.
Prof. Dr. Tran Van Thuan - Deputy Minister of Health - emphasized: "The current law has laid an important legal foundation for the field of tissue and organ transplantation, but after nearly two decades, many regulations have revealed limitations, no longer suitable for practice. Comprehensive amendments are necessary to ensure feasibility, efficiency and humanity.
Statistics up to June 2025 show that Vietnam has performed more than 10,000 organ transplants, of which over 90% were from living donors. Although the number of organ donations from brain-dead people has increased to 236 cases, this number is still very modest compared to actual needs and compared to the general level of countries in the region.
"The current law passed by the National Assembly in 2006 has laid the foundation for more than 9,500 organ transplants over the past 20 years. However, practical implementation has revealed many shortcomings such as the rate of organ donation from brain-dead people is still very low, the registration process is complicated, there is a lack of a synchronous financial mechanism and there are no specific regulations on transparent organ coordination and distribution", the Deputy Minister of Health stated.
This revised draft aims to build a professional and modern organ donation and transplant coordination system, applying digital technology to manage waiting lists and connect data nationwide.
Mr. Nguyen Trong Khoa - Deputy Director of the Department of Medical Examination and Treatment Management (Ministry of Health) - said that the draft law aims to ensure fairness, humanity and prevent the commercialization of organs. In addition, the brain-dead diagnosis process will be simplified, shortening the time to avoid wasting valuable organs.
A notable point in the draft is the regulation that medical facilities are allowed to take tissues and organs immediately after the donor is determined to be brain-dead or heart-dead without additional consent from the family, if that person has registered to donate organs before passing away. In case of not yet registered donation, the collection of tissue and organs must still have the written consent of the legal representative. According to experts, this adjustment helps respect the wishes of donors, reduces cumbersome procedures and is in line with international practices.
The draft also proposes to expand the right to donate organs to people under 18 years old with brain death or heart disease, with the condition that there must be written consent from a legal representative. This is considered an important step forward, contributing to increasing the source of organs to save patients' lives.
In addition, the principle of transparent organ coordination is set out, prioritizing emergency care, children, people waiting for transplants at the donor locality, then to other cases according to the national list, to optimize organ use efficiency and ensure fairness in distribution.
