Press Releases

SFH on heart transplant incident at Queen Mary Hospital

Following is the transcript of remarks made by the Secretary for Food and Health, Dr Ko Wing-man, before attending the Legislative Council meeting this afternoon (May 22):

Reporter: Do you think the incident (in which a female patient with critical end-stage heart failure underwent an emergency heart transplantation of unmatched blood type) is an unacceptable case?

Secretary for Food and Health: Transplantation of a heart with wrong match of ABO blood group is a serious incident and I am sure the Hospital Authority will conduct a detailed and full investigation into the underlying causes of such a serious mistake.

Reporter: (On the cause of the incident.)

Secretary for Food and Health: This is where (we are looking at). On the other hand, I hope that the incident will not affect Hong Kong people's will of donating their organs because this is a very important area in supporting patients who have internal organ failure, such as kidney, liver, etc.

(Please also refer to the Chinese portion of the transcript.)


Ends/Wednesday, May 22, 2013
Issued at HKT 16:49

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