CRI听力:Appropriate Punishment Is Necessary to Regulate Medical Institutions Doing Organ Transplants

The Ministry of Health recently announced it would check medical institutions that perform organ transplant operations. Experts are proposing to establish an appropriate punishment system to regulate organ transplant in China. Our reporter Lin Lin has the details.

The Ministry of Health says it will check medical institutions' organ transplant work this year and focus on illegal operations in hospitals that are unauthorized to perform organ transplants. It also mandates that professional organ transplant doctors cannot perform operations at unauthorized hospitals.

Song Ruliang, an attorney at Guangdong Lawsons Law Office, describes the qualifications that hospitals must have to perform organ transplants.

"The hospital should have professional organ transplant doctors and relative technologies and facilities, as well as a medical ethics committee to approve organ transplants. A clear indication of organ supply and demand is also necessary."

Currently, 163 hospitals on the mainland are authorized to perform organ transplants.

But some unauthorized hospitals perform them as well. Qi Zhongquan, Director of the Organ Transplant Institute at Xiamen University, explains why.

"Unbalanced organ supply and demand is the root cause, which leads some people to engage in organ trading, driven by high profits."

Currently about 1 million people in China need organ transplants each year, but only 1 percent receive the organs they need.

Song Ruliang from Guangdong Lawsons Law Office believes the punishment system for unauthorized hospitals that perform organ transplants in China faces a bottleneck.

"It is too light or too heavy for a hospital, especially for a large hospital."

Song says unauthorized hospitals that perform organ transplants might only receive a warning to stop their activities, an order rectification or a fine of less than 3,000 yuan, which usually does not prevent them from continuing to perform organ transplants. But they may also have their medical licenses revoked--a heavy price to pay, especially for large comprehensive hospitals.

To better regulate organ transplants, Song suggests a more appropriate punishment system. He also suggests setting up an organ transplant doctors' database that the public can access.

As for scarce organ supply, both Qi Zhongquan and Song Ruliang believe that brain dead patients are the best source of organs, although China has no law defining brain death. Many Chinese believe death occurs the moment when a person stops breathing and his heart ceases to beat.

For CRI, this is Lin Lin.