The Beijing Municipal Health Bureau has approved an initial
group of 13 hospitals?for carrying out human organ
transplants, two months after China's first regulations on
transplants came into effect, prohibiting the trade of human
organs.
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.
The bureau had listed the hospitals and the types of transplants
they could perform on its website between June 11 and June 24 to
solicit public opinions.
"No other medical institutions are allowed to carry out human
organ transplants without approval from the local health
authorities. If they do, they will be punished according to the
law," a bureau statement said.
Other Chinese provinces, municipalities and regions, such as
Heilongjiang, Shanghai, and Shandong, have also drawn up lists of
approved hospitals as required by the Ministry of Health.
About 600 hospitals nationwide submitted applications to
continue to perform transplant operations but the Ministry of
Health announced in April that only an initial group of 160 medical
institutions would receive a license.
Experts believe the new approval system will help standardize
human organ transplant surgery, help medical institutions improve
their services, and guarantee benefits for patients.
However, the country faces a huge gap between supply and demand.
About 1.5 million people need transplants each year, but only
10,000 can find organs, according to the Ministry of Health.
The government had to unify organ transplant standards or
the?situation would be "in a mess," Vice Health Minister Huang
Jiefu has said.
The country's first set of regulations on human organ
transplants, which prohibit organizations and individuals from
trading human organs in any form, went into effect on May 1.
(Xinhua News Agency June 26, 2007)