[From left: Daughter Tabitha, elder son Paul, younger son Given, Pastor Lau Chin Kwee and his wife Lim Foong Ngee.]
By Ng Wan Ching
HE HAD just harvested a heart from a donor and had no time to waste.
Instead of waiting for an ambulance, Dr Lim Chong Hee took the donor heart, which had been packed on ice and placed inside a plastic container, jumped into his trusty Saab 95 and drove back to Singapore General Hospital (SGH), where the recipient was waiting in an operating room.
He was about to make medical history. A big surgical team, including other cardiothoracic and liver transplant surgeons, performed Asia's first double organ transplant in a 13-hour operation. (See graphic.)
It was a joint effort by the National Heart Centre (NHC) and SGH.
At a packed press conference at SGH yesterday, the lead heart surgeon casually revealed this information to this surprised reporter.
'This is something we do routinely for heart transplants. The traffic jams are not that bad in Singapore. Most of these operations take place late at night when there are usually no jams. And the organ is safest with us,' said Dr Lim, who is also director of the heart and lung transplant programme at NHC.
We cannot reveal which hospital the organ came from, to protect the donor's identity.
In contrast, the liver arrived by ambulance.
Dr Tan Yu Meng, lead liver surgeon for the operation and surgical director of the liver transplant programme at SGH, said the liver always goes back by ambulance with the transplant coordinator.
'That is the protocol we have for the liver transplant programme,' said Dr Tan.
Meanwhile, the Singapore pastor who underwent the historic heart and liver transplant about three weeks ago is recovering and expected to be discharged from the hospital soon.
The New Paper did not name him in earlier reports out of consideration for his family. At the press conference yesterday, Pastor Lau Chin Kwee, 57, appeared on a screen via webcam.
He introduced himself and said he was getting better every day. He is, for for first time in a long while, eating well and enjoying his food.
He suffers from familial amyloid polyneuropathy (FAP), a condition in which the liver produces abnormal proteins known as amyloids.
These proteins affect the nerves and the organs, impairing their functions over time.
Rare case
It is so rare here that SGH had seen only a couple of cases so far, said Associate Professor Tan Chee Kiat, director of the Liver Transplant Programme at SGH.
As at 30 Jun 2008, the FAP World Transplant Registry had registered 55 multiple organ transplants done on patients with the illness.
Of these, 17 were for combined liver and heart transplant. Pastor Lau's operation is not included in that figure. There were also 37 combined liver and kidney transplants and one liver, kidney and heart transplant.
According to the two lead transplant surgeons in the latest case, Pastor Lau should have at least a few good years. Said Dr Lim: 'The five-year survival rate for heart transplant patients is 72 per cent. The 10-year survival rate is 50 per cent. Other than that, it will be very difficult to say what is Mr Lau's prognosis.'
According to Dr Tan, the five-year survival rate for liver transplant patients is 70 to 80 per cent. 'The recipient is as well as he can be. He looks very good,' said Dr Tan.
Assoc Prof Tan said it took a team of 30 to 40 surgeons, physicians, nurses, other allied healthcare workers including medical social workers and transplant coordinator to pull off the transplant.
'The patients are often quite fragile and the team needs a certain amount of tenacity to withstand the (long) operation,' said Assoc Prof Tan.
'Co-ordination and doing things right, those are the most important things.'
