China’s organ transplant industry is a systemic human rights crisis and Taiwanese going to China for transplants pay far more than Chinese, a doctor said on Friday.
The Chinese organ transplant system is built on human rights abuses, previously relying heavily on death row inmates, Uighur prisoners of conscience, Christians and priests as sources of organs, Taiwan Association for International Care of Organ Transplants vice president Huang Shi-wei (黃士維) said in a speech on overseas organ transplantation’s development and ethical issues at the Changhua Christian Hospital in Changhua City.
In the past few years, more socially disadvantaged people have become subject to the opaque, unethical black market for organs in the name of “citizen donation,” Huang said.
Photo courtesy of the Changhua Christian Hospital
It is “not medical treatment, but an industry selling people as commodities,” he said.
Taiwanese visiting China to undergo an organ transplant are not only charged much more than locals, but became an accessory to human rights abuse, he said.
From 2000 to 2006, Taiwanese who traveled to China for kidney or liver transplants were charged NT$900,000 to NT$2 million (US$30,065 to US$66,811), much higher than the NT$180,000 to NT$250,000 it would cost Chinese, Huang said.
The fees have soared since 2007 to more than NT$2 million for a kidney transplant and up to NT$8 million for a liver transplant, he said.
“Some agents claimed they offered ‘premium services’ such as providing the company of doctors throughout therapy or a ‘personalized healthcare team,’ but in reality, they exploit the opportunity to charge millions of dollars more,” Huang said.
The Physicians Act (醫師法) and the Human Organ Transplantation Act (人體器官移植條例) stipulate that doctors could face having their license revoked if they engage in organ trade or broker organ transplantation.
However, the value chain is covert and so incredibly profitable that there are black market operators in Taiwan, Huang said.
“Chinese hospitals are searching for organs by any means and people there are living in fear,” he said, adding that the medical issue of organ transplantation has evolved into “a systemic human rights crisis.”
Patients who were deceived into believing that they can buy a happy life would find themselves taking a gamble, Huang said.
Hospital spokesman Chang Shang-wen (張尚文) said that doctors accompanying people to China for an organ transplant would be betraying patients’ trust in the healthcare system as well as violate the medical code of ethics.
People are not required to travel abroad for organ transplants, as the quality of living-donor liver transplants in Taiwan meets international standards and the nation has a high success rate, he said.
“Healthcare is not a dark industry and medical practitioners’ conscience is the last line of defense,” Chang added.
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