Top organ donation official calls for legal framework to boost transplant access

A top organ donation official called for a legal framework for transplants Saturday, as China continues to work to improve access to these life- saving procedures.

Huang Jiefu, head of the National Human Organ Donation and Transplant Committee, told news portal caixin. com that a law is needed to complete the donation system and define the responsibilities of the bodies involved, includ- ing health departments and the Red Cross Society.

“On one hand, there is a lack of special management branches for organ donation in health departments; on the other hand, there are not enough doctors and hospitals qualified to conduct transplant surgeries,” Huang explained.

Huang proposed in an interview with the Legal Mirror on Saturday that the number of hospitals permitted to conduct transplants should be expanded from 169 to 300 within five years and the number of doctors qualified to conduct these operations should reach 400 to meet demand.

About 10 hospitals will be added to the donation system in 2017 and hospitals that only conduct transplants but do not gather donated organs will receive warnings from the national health authorities, Huang said.

As a consequence of China’s relatively low organ donation rate – just 2.98 people per million donate their organs – only around 10,000 of the 300,000 people in need actually received a transplant as of the end of 2015, the Xinhua News Agency reported in January.

Huang also suggested including kidney transplants in the public medical insurance system.

“A kidney transplant opera- tion costs about 200,000 yuan ($ 29,000), nearly equal to the cost of 19 months of renal dialysis [ which is included in medical insurance]. But dialysis lasts for many years, costing more than a kidney transplant in total,” Huang said.