By M.K. Lim

KUALA LUMPUR: A female who was waiting for a heart transplant died due to a stroke and most of her organs were donated to give lives to those who needs them.
   
     The heart patient Winnie Chen was kept alive on a mechanical heart device for two years and had never failed to had harbour hopes that a heart transplant will finally save her.
   
     As her condition is improving, doctors were planning to wean her off the mechanical hart device.
  
      However, she suffered a major stroke last Thursday and became brain dead at the age of 25.

     Chen’s family members had consented to donate her lungs, eyes, liver and kidneys to patients waiting for transplants.
     IJN, in a statement yesterday, praised Chen as a brave woman and described her as an inspiration to the IJN mechanical heart team.

     “IJN wishes to express our deepest condolences to Chen’s family and to thank them for their kind deed,’’ the hospital said.

     Chen, who suffered from idiopathic cardiomyopathy due to a viral infection, had worn the mechanical heart device since Aug 1, 2008.

     Doctors had also repaired her heart valves when they installed the mechanical heart device on her.

     In an earlier report, IJN heart and lung services clinical director Dr Mohamed Ezani Mohd Taib said the device was meant to assist a pa­­tient’s heart and to “buy time’’ while waiting for a heart transplant.  

     He was quoted as saying then that if there was a suitable heart donor for Chen, he would perform the transplant.