Woman can finally discard 9kg of pump devices after heart transplant

But donors are hard to come by and number on waiting list for organ could rise

- Joyce Teo

 

On Feb 10, Ms Kong Xiang Hui will celebrate her third Chinese New Year with her transplanted heart.

Before the transplant, the 30-year-old's life had depended on an implanted heart pump that took over the functions of the organ.

But while it kept her alive, it also changed how she lived. The pump came with two battery packs, one of which she carried in front, in a cross-body bag, and the other on her back, in a backpack.

These were connected to the pump by two wires sticking out of her abdomen. In total, it weighed 9kg.

Despite that burden, Ms Kong, whose heart failed in 2012 as a result of a flu-like viral infection, counted herself lucky. The heart pumps enabled her to live with heart failure for nearly nine years until she received a heart in July 2021 from a 14-year-old donor with the same blood type and about the same body weight.

Heart donors are hard to come by, but the use of artificial heart pumps, known as ventricular assist devices, has helped to keep patients alive while they await a heart transplant.

In the past, at least one patient on the waiting list would die each year while waiting for a heart, but this number has dropped to an average of one in three years with the use of artificial heart pumps, according to data from the National Heart Centre Singapore (NHCS).

"I feel sad about having heart failure, but I am glad that I got a new lease of life," Ms Kong, who has two older brothers, told The Straits Times in a recent interview.

Since Singapore's first heart transplant was performed in July 1990, 98 more have been carried out here. All of them were at NHCS, which handles close to 3,000 patients with heart failure annually.