Focus Taiwan
Date: 2019/07/12
By: Chang Ming-hsuan and Emerson Lim

Taipei, July 12 (CNA) It took six months of monitoring a heart transplant patient, but National Taiwan University Hospital (NTUH) was finally willing to declare success Friday in keeping alive a patient without a functioning heart longer than ever before in Taiwan.

The 38-year-old patient was stung by a bee during a visit to Japan in early October 2018. Upon her return to Taiwan, she suffered a high fever and then a cardiac arrest on Oct. 20, 2018, due to inflammation of the heart muscle resulting from the bee sting.

The hospital put her on life support, including an artificial heart, while waiting for heart donors, Chen Yih-sharng (陳益祥), chairman of the Cardiovascular Surgery Division at NTUH, said at a press conference on Friday.

Although bed-ridden, the patient was conscious and could move her limbs and react whenever someone called her name, proving that her brain was functioning well, Chen said.
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