Ancient traditions impede organ transplants

(Ecns.cn)--China has long struggled with one of the lowest organ donation rates in the world. The Ministry of Health (MOH) reveals that about 1.5 million patients are in urgent need of new organs every year, but only 10,000 transplants can be carried out.

He Xiaoshun, vice head of the First Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-Sen University, told reporters from Banyuetan Magazine that out of the more than 9 million people who die in China annually, as many as 3 million could be qualified donors. But the actual number of contributors is far less than that, he said.

Chen Jiaqi, 73, a professor at the Eye Center of Sun Yat-Sen University, pointed out that presently many patients in need of new corneas have no other option but to wait.

Moreover, according to He Xiaoshun, organs have been wasted due to a lack of medical expertise. By now, successful heart, kidney, liver, pancreas, lung and small intestine transplants have been performed, "But not all such operations can be carried out in China," he said.

The recent pledge to end the practice of taking organs from executed prisoners will also exacerbate the shortage. The state-run Xinhua News Agency estimates that prisoners account for two-thirds of China's transplanted organs.

Though officials say the country should rely on a new national system for organ transplants, the popularity of donation continues to lag, due mostly to long-held cultural beliefs.

Many Chinese don't want to donate organs because they believe the deceased should be buried whole, explained Martin Patience, a reporter with the BBC.

This has led to a thriving black market. Officials outlawed organ trafficking five years ago, but it still remains a problem, Patience added.

A survey by the Canton Public Opinion Research Center shows that more than 80 percent of the 1,000 respondents speculated that donated organs were traded illegally for high profits.

"Who are the real beneficiaries?" some wondered.

In response, the Red Cross Society of China (RCSC) launched a trial system last year in 163 hospitals licensed to perform transplants, requiring them to share information about all organ donations and allocations.

The Ministry of Health requires that all donated organs should be entered into this system, where receivers can be easily found by cross-checking blood type, height and weight, explained He Xiaoshun.

The RCSC also said that financial aid guidelines would be issued for families of deceased donors to help curb the illegal organ trade.

"It's international practice to compensate donors, such as exempting them from or reducing medical fees and funeral expenses. Currently, social aid in China needs to be approved by the Ministry of Civil Affairs, which decides how much the compensation should be," noted He.

"Families of donors should also be taken care of," said Gao Min, an organ donation coordinator at the RCSC's Shenzhen branch.

Gao and 600 others like her have been working diligently to reduce the organ demand-supply imbalance.

"Every donation is a tough task for me," said Gao, 46, who has been both loved and hated for bringing hope to dying patients while also challenging a thousand-year-old funeral tradition.

According to the China Daily, only qualified hospitals in China are allowed to conduct transplants. However, they are prohibited from removing tissues or organs from a dead body unless the donor's close relatives have signed an agreement with the RCSC.

As a result, Gao must sometimes carefully persuade family members of dead patients to agree on donations so that hospitals can conduct timely transplants.

But some hospitals won't even cooperate; they refuse to conduct transplants for fear that the relatives might seek revenge, said Gao.

Data from the RCSC show that by June 2009, 68,800 people in the Chinese mainland had registered to donate their tissue and organs, but only 8,400 of them eventually followed through.