RTX12M3U.jpg (Photo : Reuters)
The lives of more than 3,000 Chinese citizens so far were saved this year when they received posthumous organ donations from close to 1,300 donors, according to an official.
Huang Jiefu, director of the China Organ Donation Committee and a former deputy health minister, said that the number of public organ donations in 2014 is projected to surpass the total in the four previous years combined.
China started its national organ donation system in 2010. Under the program, Chinese citizens can donate organs posthumously to patients needing transplants.
More than 2,730 donations have been made so far, according to a China Daily report.
But while the number of donations is on the rise, the demand requires more benefactors, Huang said during a recent organ-transplant conference in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province.
About 300,000 patients in China need organ transplants each year, but only 9,000 could undergo one due to the lack of donors, said Huang.
"It has . . . long been a dream for generations of Chinese transplant surgeons to establish an ethical and sustainable organ donation system that meets the international standard as well as the demand from Chinese people," said Huang.
Hao Linna, vice president of the Red Cross Society of China, meanwhile, said that more than 31,000 people "have signed with the society to become a volunteer for organ donations."
Together with the Family Planning Society, the Red Cross Society of China runs the country's 2010-started organ donation system.
Prior to the system being in place, many voluntary organ donors were death-row inmates, a situation that received criticism "despite the fact that written consent was required for the prisoners' donations," Huang said.
