'Please help my daughter': Mother's tearful plea for lung donor as

daughter has just one more day to live

The mother of a teenager who will die unless she receives a double lung transplant by
tomorrow pleaded yesterday for a donor family to step forward and save her daughter's
life.
"For those who have a good heart, please help my daughter," said a tearful Imelda Lo.
"She's a very good daughter. I don't want to lose her."
Jamella Mangali Lo is one of three or four patients a year in Hong Kong who are afflicted
by primary pulmonary hypertension, a condition for which there is no specific cause.
Dr Timmy Au Wing-kuk of Queen Mary Hospital said they had 48 hours to save her.
Half of all patients die because of the lack of a suitable transplant donor.
"The death rate of this operation is 30 per cent, and even if it was a success, there could
be multiple organ failure," said Au, chief of service of the department of cardiothoracic
surgery at the Pok Fu Lam hospital.
"But there is no other option - if there is no lung transplant, the death rate is 100 per
cent."
Jamella, a hospitality and catering student at the Institute of Vocational Education, heads
the city's waiting list for a lung transplant.
She briefly slipped into critical condition on Saturday soon after being transferred from
Grantham Hospital in Wong Chuk Hang and is now hooked up to a heart-lung machine
that is keeping her alive.
Her blood pressure is three to four times higher than normal.