China sees more than 80 thousand registered organ donors
Take me away, mom Animals on the Road	“Water Margin” on eggs Cat the occupier Adorable animals pose like stars Cuddle up together, battling against blizzard Sunshine in the life

 

Doctors performing an organ transplant operation at the First Affiliated Hospital of Xi'an Jiaotong University.[Photo: dyyy.xjtu.edu.cn]

As of December 10th, more than 80,000 Chinese people have registered as organ donors, with over 20,000 people waiting for life-saving organ transplants annually in China, according to Huang Jiefu, director of China Organ Donation and Transplant Commission(CODTC).

In 2015, a total of 2,776 Chinese people donated their organs after passing away, allowing for a record of 10,057 organ transplants operations that year. The numbers of organ donors and transplants in 2016 have witnessed 50% growth, reports thepaper.cn.

While views on organ donation have improved in China, there is still a large gap between the number of donors and recipients, as well as a shortage of doctors and hospitals for transplant procedures.

According to Huang, there are only hundreds of doctors in China engaging in organ transplants, resulting in only around ten thousand operations being available annually.

Meanwhile, there are only 169 qualified hospitals where organ transplants can be done. Of those, over 70 are capable of performing liver transplants, over 90 can perform kidney transplants, 20 can perform heart transplants, and fewer than 20 can perform lung transplants.

"We want to increase the number of qualified hospitals to at least 300," said Huang.

In comparison, the United States has 120 million registered organ donors while its total population is only 319 million.

Among those who are waiting for life-saving organ transplants, Zhang Zijing's daughter, diagnosed with biliary atresia which could lead to death, is a lucky one. The girl successfully received a liver transplant operation. However, another man in the same hospital didn't get his matched liver and he died, after waiting for more than a year for an operation, said Zhang.

At present, the high cost of organ transplant has been the main concern for families. It takes over 300 thousand yuan( USD 43,172 ) to transplant a kidney, and 600 thousand (USD 86,345) for liver or heart transplants in cities like Beijing, says Li Zucheng, who once received a liver transplant.

Though people donate their organs for free, it takes a great amount of money to obtain, conserve and transport those organs. Those costs generally are covered by government financing in developed countries, says Huang.

Regarding the donors, a survey, jointly made by China Organ Transplantation Development Foundation and other institutions, shows that 83% of respondents expressed willingness to register for donation.

As per the survey, people say the reason they don't register as a donor is because they don't know where to register and the procedure is too complicated.

Huang suggests that a special department shall be set up to deal with issues relating to organ donations and transplants.

Author： 　　　Source：CRI　　　 Editor：Yang Fan