Prison transfer for father's attempt to save son

A family is facing an anxious wait to see whether a bone marrow transplant, made possible by the incarcerated father's rare trans-provincial prison transfer, has saved their son's life.

In a story that has caused much online discussion, Gao Yong, who began serving a decade-long jail term for burglary in 2005, was allowed to travel to donate bone marrow to his nine-year-old son, Jun Jie, who has leukemia. Briefly reuniting the pair after seven years apart, the move has been interpreted as a sign of compassion shown by China's justice system.

After watching his son for a while behind the thick glass of an isolation ward, Gao, who had been serving his sentence in east China's Zhejiang province, left a hospital in southwestern Chongqing municipality for a jail further south, in Guizhou province, on Saturday.

A video of Gao coming face to face with his son in the Chongqing hospital on June 9 has touched many netizens' hearts since it was spread on the Internet.

It shows Jun Jie sitting with 10 needles in his body, frail and bald after days of chemotherapy. The father, unable to enter for fear of contamination, talked to his son via phone for 10 minutes.

"Papa, are you coming back now?" murmured Jun Jie, who had been under the impression Gao was away at work for the past seven years and had no idea of the reason for his father's visit.

Jun Jie was diagnosed with leukemia around the end of 2011. Since hospitals in his hometown, the city of Zunyi in Guizhou, ran out of possible cures, his mother Luo Jing transferred him to the Xinqiao Hospital in Chongqing.

There, they were told Jun Jie required a bone marrow transplant, but tests showed none of his family members surrounding him were a match. So the only hope turned to his father.

In February, after the youngster's blood samples were sent to the jail holding Gao some two hours away by air, good news came back -- they matched.

"At that time, Jun Jie had become too weak to travel, so I went to judicial departments both in Zhejiang and Guizhou to persuade them to transfer his father to the Xinqiao Hospital," Luo said.

In March, Gao was transferred to a prison in Guizhou to prepare for the medical operation. Feng Li, a prison warder who has been guarding Gao after the transfer, said the prison improved food rationing and provided psychological counseling to the father in preparation before they traveled to Chongqing.

"He has a sense of guilt. He is a convict, but he thinks society did not give up on him when he is in trouble. He also feels terribly sorry for his family for not being able to be with them when they need him," according to Feng.

On June 9, the prison in Guizhou sent 10 officers to escort Gao to Chongqing.

It is very rare for a prisoner to come out of their assigned jail for as long as a week, noted the head of the escort team.

The officer, who preferred not to reveal his name, said it was decided that at least two officers would watch Gao at all points during his time outside of Zhejiang.

On Thursday morning, escorted by two officers and handcuffed, Jun Jie's father arrived at the the Xinqiao Hospital for the crucial transplant.

After he lay down, one officer removed his handcuffs. He looked very calm. While the doctors were preparing, he said to his wife, "Have some rest. You've become very tired these past few days."

Four hours later, doctors had withdrawn some 170 ml of stem cells and then rushed to Jun Jie's ward to infuse 85 ml of them into his body, and kept the remainder for further use.

After all this was done, Luo said, "I am so preoccupied today. I have feelings beyond words. I am excited, worried and grateful. But, I cannot relax. I have worries both for the father and the son."

On Friday morning, some 350 ml of stem cells were withdrawn from Gao as a backup.

Doctor Zhang Xi said it would require two weeks to see whether the transplant has restored Jun Jie to health.

Many users of Sina Weibo, the Chinese Twitter-like microblogging service, expressed their strong support. "As Father's Day is coming, the love between the father and son touched me a lot," a user named "JSBC" posted on the website.

A netizen with the screen name "little snail" said, "Best wishes to the poor boy. Thankfully, we are living in a society with love and care."

"Hanyueqingfeng" said, "The prison transfer showed a society with the rule of law becoming more and more human-oriented."