China will continue to build on the momentum of its organ transplantation reform. Huang Jiefu, initiator and orchestrator of the reform, told the attendees of a major conference in Hong Kong that the country has completed its first major step in a long journey, but it now needs more support to go further.
It took ten years for China to make the first step in organ transplantation reform, but that step was a major turning point.
Addressing the attendees at the International Congress of the Transplantation Society in Hong Kong. Chinese representative Huang Jiefu said the efforts to push reforms must continue.
With a management system and regulations in place, progress is visible. The rate of organ donation has kept rising since a voluntary organ donation trial started in 2010.
But in order to meet the huge demand, China needs to double the number of transplant hospitals from its current 169. And it needs more organ donation coordinators.
"In 2012, before we came, here there was no doctor trainers in organ donation. Now they have 15 who visited Spain and 500 we train in China," Marit Manyalich, president of Spain's Donation & Transplantation Institute, said.
Currently, China is training a total of 1,200 coordinators with help from the international community. The nation will also draw on foreign experience in the expansion of medical insurance coverage for organ transplantation, and in building a green channel for organ transportation.
In his speech, Huang Jiefu said China will hold an international organ donation conference in October in Beijing, and that the country has already drawn up a roadmap to lay out how it will accelerate the reforms in organ donation and transplantation.
