The Chinese government has declared mandatory from July 1 for all organ transplant operations in China to be discussed with and approved by a local medical science and ethics committee.
The measure would play a vital role in banning the sale of organs and putting a stop to practices that violate the ethics and medical standards of organ transplants, officials said.
This is the first time a Chinese health authority had set up a special committee and taken measures to help regulate organ transplants, said Mao Qun'an, spokesman of the Ministry of Health. It may be mentioned here that a number of Pakistani patients, who visit China for liver transplant, increased in the recent years.
According to an estimate, altogether about ten patients are being admitted in three Chinese hospitals, two in Beijing and one Tianjin every month. The hospitals' sources claimed that the success's ratio of the transplant surgery is around 70 percent.
A senior surgeon at a local hospital Dr Wang Xie told APP that the most of the patients come for the transplant at the last stage of their liver disease, with hepatitis 'B' and 'C', so the treatment takes time and it reduces chances of recovery. In normal cases, they get improved within a period of three months after surgery.
It is now mandatory for patients from Pakistan and other countries that they should decide for transplant only on recommendation of a senior medical physician in his own country and he should be able to travel and afford necessary expenditure as well.
The patients, he suggested should directly approach hospital's administration for admission and surgery, instead of going through the so-called agents who charge heavy commission. The hospitals' addresses and contact numbers could be traced out from the relevant embassies or websites.
The Chinese ministry of health will set up a State-level committee of experts in management, medical treatment, nursing, pharmacy, law and ethics to guide the country's work. Medical institutes and hospitals at various levels will also be required to organise their own committees to approve all organ transplants.
A key task of the committee is to ensure that the organs used for transplants are voluntarily donated instead of being sold or randomly taken from people, Mao said in an exclusive interview with China Daily.
There are currently 500 hospitals in China conducting liver transplants. There are only 100 hospitals performing the same operation in the United States. The shortage of donated organs and the lack of supervision of hospitals has led to many viewing transplant surgeries as a cash cow, Huang Jiefu, vice-minister of health said here recently.
Many people have been enticed to profit from this situation by offering their organs for sale. In many hospitals, those patients with money or connections to managers or doctors have greater sway and more chance of obtaining an organ sooner.
In western Europe a kidney transplant costs $173,000, while in China patients pay between 40,000 yuan (4,800 dollars) to 60,000 yuan (7,200 dollars) more affordable for foreigners from developed countries, but a heavy burden for most Chinese people, 80 percent of whom have no medical insurance, official sources noted.
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