Organ donations must become more transparent

With Hong Kong hosting the 26th international congress of The Transplantation Society from Aug 18 to 22, the first by a Chinese city, the significant increase in organ donations in China has come under the spotlight.

Last year, 2,766 donors donated 7,785 major organs, higher than the combined total for 2013 and 2014. In the first half of this year alone, the number of donated organs reached 5,029, up 45 percent year-on-year.

In terms of donors per 1 million population, China ranks 44th on the global list. This is a great improvement given the dismal number of organs donated in the past and China's decision to not use executed convicts' organs in transplantations from Jan 1, 2015.

Jose Ramon Nunez Pena, medical officer for the World Health Organization, lauded the development and said donated organs are being better distributed among those who need them.

Yet some people have questioned the sources of donated organs in China, with a few even claiming China still harvests the organs of convicts after they are executed for transplantations. To trash such rumors China needs to make its organ donation system more transparent, apart from educating people about the importance of donating organs and persuading them to become donors.

An easy way of promoting organ donation is to encourage family members to donate, if possible, an organ a loved one needs. This will help the idea of organ donation to take roots among the people. Besides, the survival rate is higher and life expectancy longer for those living with organs donated by their close relatives.

A 68-year-old British woman Sue Westhead recently drew global attention for having lived with a kidney donated by her mother 43 years ago. Westhead, who is still going strong, was diagnosed with a kidney ailment in 1973 when she was just 25 years old. The ailment quickly worsened and her mother, who was then 57, donated a kidney to save her life.

Westhead's mother died in 1985, but her kidney lives in her daughter's body. In fact, the kidney is exactly 100 years old. Westhead's mother is a great example to inspire people to donate their organs.

Organ donation even between non-relatives can be mutually beneficial. When the father of Jeni Stepien was murdered in Pennsylvania, the United States, in 2006, his family donated his heart. Arthur Thomas, a patient in New Jersey suffering from a fatal heart disease, received the heart and survived.

When Stepien got married this month, she specially invited Thomas, whom she had never seen before, to attend her wedding.

Thomas said he could not imagine a greater honor than escorting the daughter of the man who has given him his heart, while Stepien said: "I was just so thankful that my dad could be here with us today in spirit and a piece of his physical being as well". Stepien's father was killed 10 years ago, but she knows a part of him still lives.

The idea of "one's organs continuing to live" even after death catching the imagination of people in some developed countries has encouraged many to donate their organs and is the reason why the rate of organ donation in those countries is very high. China has to make efforts to popularize such ideas in order to encourage more people to donate their organs.

China now strictly follows the principle that willing donors should be the only source of organs used in transplantations. That principle, together with transparency and more people willingly donating their organs will cause the rumors about donated organs to die a natural death.

The author is deputy editor in chief of Encyclopedia magazine and a former researcher in medical science.

(China Daily 08/27/2016 page5)