Sources say the 19-year-old girl, who was desperately in need of a lung transplant, has died.
Jamella Lo had been waiting for a donor for more than two weeks after she came down with a rare lung condition that affects just three or four people in Hong Kong each year.
Lo's pulmonary hypertension lead to the narrowing of the blood vessels in her lungs and she spent more than two weeks at Queen Mary Hospital as doctors started a desperate search for a suitable donor.
She was kept alive during the time by a heart and lung machine. Her doctors had warned that she may suffer from multiple organ failure in that condition.
The teenager's lungs failed suddenly last month when she was in Zhejiang province for a school trip. Her sorry plight evoked a lot of public sympathy and many people requested information about lung donation.
But Hong Kong does not have the capability to transplant lungs from live donors and Lo’s only chance for survival was to find a donor – a brain-dead patient – whose relatives were willing to donate the organs.
The authorities, including the Secretary for Food and Health, Ko Wing-man, had appealed for organ donation to save Lo’s life. But no donor was found in time.
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Last updated: 2015-10-07 HKT 17:31
Jamella Lo had been waiting for a donor for more than two weeks after she came down with a rare lung condition that affects just three or four people in Hong Kong each year.
Lo's pulmonary hypertension lead to the narrowing of the blood vessels in her lungs and she spent more than two weeks at Queen Mary Hospital as doctors started a desperate search for a suitable donor.
She was kept alive during the time by a heart and lung machine. Her doctors had warned that she may suffer from multiple organ failure in that condition.
The teenager's lungs failed suddenly last month when she was in Zhejiang province for a school trip. Her sorry plight evoked a lot of public sympathy and many people requested information about lung donation.
But Hong Kong does not have the capability to transplant lungs from live donors and Lo’s only chance for survival was to find a donor – a brain-dead patient – whose relatives were willing to donate the organs.
The authorities, including the Secretary for Food and Health, Ko Wing-man, had appealed for organ donation to save Lo’s life. But no donor was found in time.
_______________________
Last updated: 2015-10-07 HKT 17:31
http://news.rthk.hk/rthk/en/component/k2/1215932-20151007.htm
