What The Renal Surgery and Training Program Is

The Renal Surgery and Training Program is dedicated to developing the resources for kidney transplants to take place in Vietnam. Through this program, Belgian doctors have traveled to Vietnam, not only to perform surgeries, but also to conduct influential theoretical and practical training for Vietnamese doctors. The program successfully created a renal transplant program in Hospital 115 in Ho Chi Minh City, which has led to numerous successful surgeries, as well as the creation of a transplant register and organ donation promotion.

What The Renal Surgery and Training Program Has Achieved

In November 2003, Dr. Kim Hai Bui coordinated a Medical Congress in Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC), Vietnam, which included participants from the Sart Tilman University Hospital (CHU) of the University of Liège (ULg), Belgium, and the Health Care Service of HCMC.

Following the Congress, Professors Michel Meurisse M.D, and Pierre Honore,  respectively Head and Deputy Head of the Abdominal Surgery and Transplant Department of the ULg, met with Professor Pham Van Bui, head of the Nephrology-Urology Department, and Dr. Nguyen Ngoc Khanh, Medical Director of the Popular Hospital 115 of HCMC, to discuss the feasibility of a live donor renal transplant program.

Hospital 115 acquired a new building and developed new infrastructure for this purpose. Thanks to the assistance of Mrs. Phan Thuy Thanh, Vietnamese Ambassador to Belgium, Dr. Nguyen The Dung, Director of the Health Care Service of HCMC, and the support of Mr. Pol. Louis, University Hospital Administrator, and Professor Christian Bouffioux, Medical Director of the University Hospital, in February 2004 a medical team of the University Hospital of Liège brought nearly 200 kilos of equipment to HCMC to carry out the first renal transplant at the Popular Hospital 115.

After the establishment of the necessary infrastructure, in February 2004, a transplant team from the CHU of the ULg successfully performed four kidney transplants from live donors at Hospital 115 in HCMC. As expected, the news of the kidney transplant operations made the front page of the Saigon Times newspaper. Since then, more than 30 additional kidney transplants from live donors have been performed.

Conscious of the need for advanced theoretical and practical training to implement a renal transplant program in Vietnam, Professors at the University Hospital of Liège and Liège University (Ulg), in collaboration with colleagues from the Catholic University of Leuven (KUL), submitted a Targeted Inter-University project (PIC) to the University Commission for Development (CUD). This project made it possible to obtain a grant of 300,000 Euros to cover scholarships and training costs over a three-year period.

Two surgeons, an anesthesiologist, a nephrologist, four nurses and a transplant coordinator, were invited to the University Hospital of Liège to attend training courses between September 15, 2005 and March 15, 2006. The PIC project grant funded not only the medical training in Belgium, but also the development of theoretical and practical courses in Vietnam, as well as the creation of a transplant Register in Vietnam, and the promotion of organ donation.