Organ distribution system to be enforced

A computer-based system to distribute donated organs for transplant will be compulsorily brought into use at 165 accredited hospitals nationwide, according to a new regulation to take effect from September.

The regulation is to ensure fairness and transparency during organ allocation.

Issued by the National Health and Family Planning Commission on donated organ procurement and allocation, the regulation was handed down to provincial health authorities over the weekend.

"Organ allocations outside the computer-based China Organ Transplant Response System will be forbidden after the regulation aimed at eradicating organ trafficking takes effect," Zhou Jun, a deputy head of the commission's Department of Medical Administration and Medical Service Supervision, was quoted by the Beijing News as saying Sunday.

The system was put into use on a trial basis in 2011, one year after the country piloted a voluntary organ donation program.

By July, the system had distributed 770 organs for transplant on the Chinese mainland, accounting for a third of the donated organs nationwide, indicating a lack of transparency in the allocation process for the remaining two thirds.

"The system can avoid misuse as it automatically matches the patient after processing the information," said Yao Di, who is in charge of updating the system's information from the Wuhan-based Hubei General Hospital, one of the accredited hospitals.

"The system has plenty of specifications requiring patients' various information," Yao said, adding that information on donated organs is also put in the system.

The regulation also stipulates that health authorities on the provincial level should establish at least one organ procurement organization, where professional doctors and nurses will be responsible for the whole process including evaluating potential donors, signing donation agreements, preserving organs and delivering them.

It also requires that hospitals must brief the appointed procurement organization about potential donors and that each organization only has a jurisdiction of providing services to the hospitals allocated to it.

Zhang Wei, a deputy director of the division of medical administration under the Guangdong provincial health department, said the setup of this organization should be on a regional basis.

Speaking on donor's death, Zhou said the procedure must be strictly standardized and should be set up by the provincial health authorities, the Beijing Times reported Sunday.

Yao said that her hospital has attached much importance to the organ donation and transplant project since March, when Huang Jiefu, director of the Organ Transplant Committee under the commission, called for an expansion of the trial project. However, the project at her hospital is currently in a transitional period as their organ transplant ward is still under the urology department.

"We don't have any procurement organization in the province and hospitals are taking part in establishing it," Yao told the Global Times.