Beijing has proposed 13 hospitals for approval to conduct human
organ transplants, a month after China's first regulations on
transplants went into effect prohibiting the trade in human
organs.
The Beijing Municipal Health Bureau has listed the hospitals and
the specific transplant surgery they can carry out on its official
website (www.bjhb.gov.cn) until June 24 to solicit public opinions
and submissions.
The bureau had assessed hospitals that had applied to conduct
human organ transplant surgery and selected the first group of 13
qualified hospitals, a bureau statement said.
The list includes Beijing Anzhen Hospital for heart and lung
transplants, the China-Japan Friendship Hospital for liver, kidney
and lung transplants, and the Beijing Union Medical College
Hospital for liver and kidney transplants.
"If someone puts forward objections to these hospitals, the
health authorities will investigate them carefully and thoroughly
and make a final conclusion based on the facts," the statement
said.
"No other medical institutions are allowed to carry out human
organ transplants without approval from local health authorities.
If they do, they will be punished according to the law," it
said.
Other Chinese provinces, municipalities and regions, such as
Heilongjiang, Shanghai, Jiangsu, Shandong, Anhui and Shandong, are
also drawing up approved hospital lists as required by the Ministry
of Health.
Nationwide, about 600 hospitals and clinics that had conducted
transplants have submitted applications to continue, but the
Ministry of Health announced in April that only 160 medical
institutions -- in the first group -- have been licensed for
transplant surgery.
"The 'accession system' will help standardize human organ
transplant surgery, help medical institutions improve services and
guarantee patient benefits," said Zhang Xiaoju, an official with
the Heilongjiang Provincial Health Department.
The country faces a huge gap between the demand for functional
organs and the number of donations. About 1.5 million people need
transplants each year, but only 10,000 can find organs, according
to the Ministry of Health.
As a result, some unqualified medical institutions had conducted
transplant surgery, endangering lives.
"Human organ transplant, as a matter of life and death, must be
treated with the utmost care, and the safety of the general public
must be ensured," Vice Health Minister Huang Jiefu has told
reporters.
The government had to unify the accession standards or the
country would be "in a mess," Huang said.
The country's first set of regulations on human organ
transplant, which prohibits organizations and individuals from
trading human organs in any form, went into effect on May 1.
Any doctor found to be involved in the human organ trade will
have their license revoked, according to the regulations issued by
the State Council, China's cabinet.
Clinics will be suspended from doing transplant operations for
at least three years. Fines are set at between eight to ten times
the value of the outlawed trade, the regulations say.
Officials convicted of trading in human organs will be
sacked.
Most organs are donated by ordinary Chinese at death after the
voluntary signing of a donation agreement.
Human organ transplants are defined as the process of taking a
human organ or part of a human organ -- such as the heart, lung,
liver, kidney and pancreas -- from a donor and transplanting it
into a patient's body to replace a sick or damaged organ.
(Xinhua News Agency June 13, 2007)