Decisions to donate the organs of two brain-dead men have saved the life of eight patients who were in critical condition.

As of early October this year, after 31 years of organ transplants and 13 years of retrieving organs from brain-dead donors, the country has performed nearly 8,000 organ transplants.

A 32-year-old man with brain death due to a traffic accident donated his heart to revive a patient in central Huế City while his liver and two kidneys saved three other patients in Hanoi.

The law on donation, removal and transplantation of human tissues and organs and donation and recovery of cadavers has been effective from 2006, creating a legal corridor and providing life chances for many people suffering from serious diseases.

Vietnamese doctors had to spend 10 hours to transplant the lung of a brain-dead man into the thorax of another man, and then spent many months to maintain the lung and ensure his survival.

Hanoi Medical University over five years received more than 1,000 letters expressing people’s wish to donate their bodies after death, but it actually received about 10 bodies.

After Mr. T. died in a traffic accident, his family in the southern city of Vung Tau decided to donate their beloved son's organs to give life to others.

“My dear P, don’t be startled. If you wake up, you will feel pain. Please step in Heaven. On the two sides of the path to it, I will sprinkle flowers,” To Thi Anh Hong said to her dead son.

Truong Thi Nhuong, 71, from Hai Duong province, who has long wanted to meet the person who received her son’s heart, has been granted her wish.

With his health and job in good condition, a young lecturer at the HCM City University of Forestry and Agriculture with a doctorate registered to donate his organs after death to convey the message that ‘giving is forever existing’.

There were many things the married couple planned to do when they were united, but these never happened because of an accident that killed the husband.

More than 500 Buddhist monks, nuns and followers registered for blood donation while 150 people put their names on the list of organ donors at a festival in Hanoi on August 4.

 VietNamNet Bridge – It’s 7am at the kidney dialysis room at the Children Hospital 2 in HCM City and the crowd of parents with their children has become a familiar sight to doctors.

 The number of people registered for tissue and organ donation has remained very small and fails to meet the nation’s demand for organ transplants.

... Filling up a form in this room requires a confrontation with the inevitability of one’s death, something that most societies discourage, most of the time. A feeling of insecurity and fear is not surprising at that point.

Le Huu Toan and Tran Nguyen An Khuong have a shared vision on organ donation. Both young men have signed up as organ donors and recently undertook separate biking trips across Viet Nam with the hope of ‘spreading the message

 VietNamNet Bridge – In the last two years, many poor people in the Mekong Delta City of Can Tho have sold their kidneys. They typically receive VND100-150 million ($5,000-7,000) for the organ.

 U.S. President Barack Obama signed into law Thursday a bill that allows scientists to carry out research into organ donations from one person with HIV to another.

 VietNamNet Bridge – Vietnamese hospitals have performed 900 kidney transplants, 23 liver and 9 heart transplants so far, while the number of patients who are in need of organ transplant is tens of thousands.