Moments of life and death in "sleepless" operating rooms
At 1:45 PM on a day at the end of November 2025, at Central Military Hospital 108 (TUQD), 5 operating rooms were lit up at the same time. In a silence as tense as a guitar string, the doctor's hearts watched every precious moment. The organ donor had passed away. But from that passing, 29 other people stepped out of the line of life and death.
The 42-year-old man was hospitalized in a state of widespread cerebral hemorrhage stroke. Doctors did everything they could. But miracles did not come to him. When the professional council concluded brain death, his family faced a painful decision: To let their loved one pass away completely, or to continue the life by donating organs.
They chose the second option.
From the time the family agreed to donate organs, the entire hospital system was activated," a doctor from the Organ Transplant Center of Hospital 108 recounted. The consultation lasted nearly two hours under the chairmanship of Lieutenant General, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Nguyen Hoang Ngoc - Secretary of the Party Committee, Deputy Director of the hospital. Each option was considered to every minute of cold blood shortage - a vital factor for the heart, liver, and kidneys.
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Vu Van Quang - Deputy Head of the Department of Hepatobiliary and Myopathic Surgery, Central Military Hospital 108 shared: "For cases of multi-organ donation, the time factor is extremely important. For heart organs, the best cold blood shortage time is about less than 4 hours, and the cold blood shortage time for donated liver is about 6-8 hours. Therefore, all stages are actively prepared, carried out urgently, and in the best way.
At 1:45 PM, the multi-organ transplantation surgery officially started. The heart, two kidneys, liver (divided for transplantation for two patients), cornea, lungs... were successively taken and coordinated to hospitals. 5 operating rooms operated simultaneously. More than 100 doctors, nurses, and technicians were positioned.
At 5:28 PM, the first heartbeat beat back in the chest of a 68-year-old man with end-stage heart failure. On the monitor screen, numbers jumped up - a sign of a life that had just been revived. In another operating room, the patient with liver transplant was awake, and his tracheostomy was performed immediately after surgery. Two kidney transplants gave clear, even urine flow.
In just 14 days of November 2025, Hospital 108 alone "revved" 29 patients from two consecutive brain-dead multiple organ donations - an unprecedented number.
Also in November, doctors of Central Military Hospital 108 continued to mark a new medical achievement on the national organ transplant map, which is the successful implementation of a blood type incompatibility liver transplant for a 20-year-old female patient in Hanoi. The liver donor is the patient's father. This is the first adult blood type incompatibility liver transplant at the hospital and the 2nd in Vietnam.
If Military Hospital 108 impressed with "campaigns" of rapid organ transplantation, then Viet Duc Friendship Hospital moved the medical community and the public with the depth of a persistent journey lasting more than half a century. At the 2025 Vietnamese Talent Awards Ceremony, the work "Deploying multiple organ transplantation from brain-dead donors at Viet Duc Hospital" was awarded the First Prize in the field of Medicine and Pharmacy. When stepping onto the podium to receive the award, Dr. Duong Duc Hung - Director of Viet Duc Hospital - could not hide his emotion. "This is not only Viet Duc's pride, but also the achievement of many generations of Vietnamese doctors," he said.
Few people know that, even during the war, when medicine was still extremely lacking, Professor Ton That Tung cherished the dream of human organ transplantation. His classic liver transplantation project laid the foundation for modern liver surgery. The excellent student - Assoc. Prof. Ton That Bach - continued, gradually realizing that dream with the first transplants on animals, and then on humans. "When we were inpatients, teacher Bach let us practice transplanting on dogs and pigs. Very small steps, but they are the foundation for today's success," Dr. Duong Duc Hung recalled.
In 2019, Viet Duc Hospital marked the first simultaneous liver-kidney transplant in Vietnam for a 59-year-old Lao patient with terminal liver and kidney failure. In February 2023, Viet Duc Hospital shocked Vietnamese medical circles when it simultaneously transplanted a heart-kidney for a 37-year-old patient with severe dilated heart muscle and terminal kidney failure, who had undergone hemodialysis for 6 years. On October 1, 2024, the hospital again set a record for the first simultaneous heart-kidney transplant in Vietnam... To date, the hospital has performed 2,478 organ transplants, including 109 heart transplants, 8 lung transplants, 169 liver transplants and more than 2,100 kidney transplants.
In 2025, Viet Duc not only mastered multiple organ transplantation techniques from brain-dead donors, but also transferred techniques and professional support to many lower-level hospitals, contributing to expanding the national organ transplantation network.
Tears in the hospital corridor
In my interviews with the family of the organ transplant recipient, there was a repetitive detail: Tears did not fall in the operating room, but fell in the corridor. That was the wife holding her husband's hand, the person who had just had a heart transplant, trembling and saying: "If it weren't for that organ donor, I would have lost him.
That is the father of a one-year-old baby who received a liver transplant, silently bowing his head to thank the doctors, thanking a family he has never known. And there are also tears of the doctor himself. An organ transplant doctor once said to me: "We are happy to save patients, but also always bowing our heads to the departure of donors. Each transplant starts from a loss.
At Viet Duc Friendship Hospital, the organ transplant waiting area is a place where emotions are always full. Many patient families say that they are used to "living with faint hope" in the days of waiting for organ donation. A mother whose son was transplanted with a liver once shared that for many months, she only dared to sleep soundly on the stone bench in the hallway, afraid of missing a call from the doctor.
The phone call reporting organ sources came at midnight, making her both trembling with joy and choked up because she understood that somewhere, another family had just experienced irreparable loss. "My joy started from the pain of others, so we didn't dare to be happy completely" - a mother of the organ transplant patient said.
After the successful transplant, when the doctor announced that the liver function was stable, the mother burst into tears. Not only because her child was alive, but because from that moment, her family brought with them a debt of gratitude for life. For many relatives of organ transplant patients in Viet Duc, resurrection is not only a medical achievement, but also a profound reminder of compassion among people they have never known.
In 2025, according to the National Organ Transplant Coordination Center, the number of brain-dead organ donations increased sharply compared to previous years, reflecting a change in society's awareness of organ donation to save people. But behind those numbers are still private stories, not easy decisions of each family.
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Nguyen Minh Ly - Head of the Department of Anesthesiology and Resuscitation, Central Military Hospital 108 said: "When a brain-dead person has a desire to donate organs, there is no reason why we are not ready to take on the task, whether late at night, on holidays, or on holidays. Just a text message about the expected schedule for multi-organ transplantation, the staff of the Department is ready. When the order is issued, announcing the official conclusion of the consultation council, just one hour later, the entire Anesthesiology and Resuscitation team is present. With the quantity and quality of the team of doctors and nurses of the Department being trained in a very professional way as they are now, we can simultaneously transplant all organs at the same time. Regarding equipment, we are always fully prepared with machinery, medicine, organ preservation solution...".
Looking back at 2025, the achievements of organ transplantation at Central Military Hospital 108 and Viet Duc Hospital are not only scientific advances, but also a measure of social trust in the medical industry. When people are willing to give away part of the body of their deceased relatives, it is when they believe that that sacrifice will be cherished and used properly.
Amidst the modern pace of life full of anxiety, successful organ transplants remind us that: Life can be continued in very different ways. And sometimes, the most wonderful thing is not in the operating room, but starting from a very silent decision to give of humans, for humans.
Organ transplantation in Vietnam in 2025 - telling numbers
2025 is considered one of the special milestones of Vietnam's organ transplant industry, when the number of organ donations from brain-dead people increased sharply, and many difficult techniques were deployed simultaneously at large centers.
According to statistics from the National Organ Transplant Coordination Center (Ministry of Health), in 2025, the whole country recorded more than 100 organ donations from brain-dead people, a significant increase compared to previous years. From these donation sources, hundreds of organ transplants have been successfully performed, mainly kidney, liver, heart, cornea and lung transplants.
At Military Central Hospital 108 alone, in November 2025, the hospital performed 2 multi-organ transplants from brain-dead donors, contributing to the revival of 29 patients. During the year, the hospital deployed dozens of kidney transplants, liver transplants, heart transplants, and coordinated organs for many other medical facilities across the country.
At Viet Duc Friendship Hospital, 2025 marked a breakthrough in the development of multi-organ transplantation technology from brain-dead donors, helping this unit become a leading center in the industry, and at the same time transferring organ transplantation technology to many lower-level hospitals. Viet Duc's multi-organ transplantation project was awarded the First Prize of Vietnamese Talent 2025 in the field of Medicine and Pharmacy.
