7-year-old boy in Hanoi donates cornea: 'I'll give light to another friend'
“Give your light to someone else!”, the mother said and kissed her 7-year-old daughter on the forehead who was sleeping like an angel.
Mr. Nguyen Huu Hoang, Director of the Eye Bank, Eye Hospital, shared that he and his colleagues had just witnessed the extremely emotional moment of cornea donation of a 7-year-old girl in Nam Tu Liem, Hanoi.
The girl just turned 7 three months old but was diagnosed with astrocytic neuroblastoma in September 2017. The family has been trying to treat her at the K Hospital for many months, but yesterday afternoon, when she saw that her daughter was unlikely to survive, her mother called the National Coordination Center for Human Organ Transplantation to ask to donate her child's organs to save others when she passed away.
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| A cornea is removed from a donor. Illustration photo |
The call brought the entire Coordination Center to a halt during lunchtime. However, the law only accepts organ donations from people 18 years of age or older, so despite the hope for more miracles, the center could only accept the child's cornea.
Mr. Hoang said that yesterday afternoon, he, a doctor from the Eye Bank, and two officers from the Coordination Center went to the child's house to take the cornea.
Before starting, the mother looked at her daughter affectionately and said: "Please give your light to someone else!" then placed a kiss on her forehead.
“That image made my nose sting. She lay there like a sleeping angel. We started the work as gently and carefully as possible, as if afraid of disturbing her good sleep,” Dr. Hoang emotionally shared.
After 30 minutes, the cornea removal surgery was completed. The mother looked at her daughter one more time and lovingly said: "I am proud of you!"
Mr. Hoang shared that in more than 10 years of working, he had never been so emotional. This was also the first time he had done something he had never done before but felt satisfied.
Mr. Hoang said that the girl's two corneas have been stored at the Eye Bank. Unlike other organ tissues that need to be compatible with the donor in many aspects, corneal transplants are easier. With young corneas, the younger the transplant, the better.
According to Mr. Hoang, in Vietnam, the youngest cornea donor was 6 years old.
