China's Ministry of Health on Monday issued temporary
regulations on human organ transplants that explicitly ban the sale
of organs and introduce a set of medical standards for organ
transplants.
Mao Qun'an, the ministry's spokesman, said that the temporary
regulations ban any kind of organ dealing, require medical
institutions to obtain written agreements from donors before any
transplant procedure is conducted, and donors are entitled to
change their minds at any time.
The regulations, effective from July 1, require medical
institutions to register at provincial level health departments.
Class Three A hospitals, China's top ranking comprehensive
hospitals, can register their services if they have doctors with
clinical organ transplant qualifications, the relevant equipment, a
good management system and a medical ethics committee.
Unregistered medical institutions cannot carry out organ
transplants and qualified doctors with clinical organ transplant
training are not to practice in unregistered hospitals.
Mao said that registration will be canceled if patients who
receive the transplant do not survive a certain number of years.
Further, if the ministry finds any registered medical institutions
to be in actual fact unqualified, the ministry will cancel the
registration and punish those responsible.
The regulations also require organ transplant cases to be
discussed by the ethics committee and the legitimacy of the
procedure and organ/s in question confirmed by the committee.
Operations can only be carried out with the committee's
approval.
It is estimated that at least two million patients in China need
organ transplants each year but only up to 20,000 transplants can
be conducted because of a shortage of organs.
(Xinhua News Agency March 28, 2006)