CRI听力:China Reveals Organ Donation Scheme

In early 2010, the Ministry of Health and the Red Cross Society of China launched a pilot organ donation scheme which now has 19 participant cities.

Up until now the program is responsible for 1039 successful organ donations.

This is a drop in the ocean in solving the problem, magnified by an entrenched Chinese tradition to bury the body intact.

Transplant surgeon, Zhu Jiye, is the Director of the Peking University Organ Transplantation Centre and a member of China Organ Transplant Committee, the Ministry of Health's advisory body for the scheme.

Zhu says that before the government expands the program nationwide, hospitals must first be verified as capable facilitators of the scheme.

"We started with 16 pilot cities in different provinces and then we added some more, so now there are 19 participant cities. This September, we have scheduled a meeting and 164 directors of hospitals will attend. During this meeting, we will decide whether to give authorisation to those hospitals depending on if we ascertain that they are qualified to operate the organ donation scheme."

In 2007, the Chinese government passed a law making the commercial trade of organs illegal.

In the latest crackdown, last month the Public Security Bureau arrested 137 people, including doctors, under suspicion of trafficking human organs.

Ren Jianwen, who has had two kidney transplants himself, founded a website called shenyou.net, which provides information for people who need the operation.
Ren says that because the government is coming down hard on the organ black market and the current scheme is not meeting the demand, now it is harder than ever for people to get a transplant.

"Before the scheme, some uremia patients might get their kidneys from the black market through a middle man. Since the government has launched the scheme, it is now impossible to do that. People who need a kidney transplant have to wait longer to get an organ, the chances are very small. Most of the organs are from the patients' relatives at the moment."

Currently China's organ donations come from relatives, through the government's organ donation scheme and from executed prisoners with their prior consent.

The Vice-Health Minister Huang Jiefu says the latter will be phased out in the next three to five years.

Meanwhile, Zhu Jiye says that 70 per cent of people are willing to donate, but are unable to because the program is not yet available where they live.

This provides a positive outlook for the future success of the scheme.

For now though, Zhu says it is important to get information to the public about the scheme itself and the benefits of donating organs.

"The government has to count on the media, Red Cross and the NGOs to promote the program. In fact, organ donation is one of the best ways to remember and leave a legacy to the dead. And we could also provide the relatives of the dead organ donors and the donors themselves with some preferential offers when accessing the health system and help to organise a memorial or remembrance ceremony for those who donate their organs to help others."

In a country where every day patients die because of a shortage of organ donations, the task at hand certainly is no mean feat.

For CRI, this is Alexandra Blucher.