Human organ transplant in crisis

About 10,000 people are in the growing lineup waiting for organ donations and their situation is becoming desperate as the supply of organs from China dries up.

Local daily Chosun Ilbo reported on Monday that the Chinese government recently banned exports of human organs. In the past, hospitals used to import human organs from China where they were taken from executed prisoners.

However, according to Chinese local brokers, organ exports have been stopped and the number of executions has decreased since the Chinese New Year-?s Day in February.

As the country is to host the 2008 Beijing Olympics and 2010 Shanghai Expo, there was criticism over human rights violations, including the capital punishment law itself, and the donation of organs to foreign countries. Finally, the Chinese government prohibited human organ transplants for foreigners last December.

Since importing organs became harder, patients who are in need of the operation now must go to China for the transplant. The price of the operation rose as well. Last summer, it cost around 23-25 million won per kidney transplant, but it recently jumped to 35 million won.

Though the price is high and there is some risk of going abroad when sick, patients have very few alternatives since in Korea the supply of organs is always short.

Korean Network for Organ Sharing (KONOS), an affiliate of the Ministry of Health and Welfare, reported that 9,853 people applied for organ transplants such as kidney, heart, liver or lung as of the end of February. About 265 applicants joined the queue in the first two months of this year.

However, the main source of the transplants, donations, is rare.

Healthy organs can only be donated by brain dead people, but few are available from that source.

Last year, only 141 brain dead people donated their organs while 597 people received their kidneys, livers, pancreas and corneas. However, the number is a mere 0.6 percent of those who are in need of help.

Also, in many cases, the donors change their minds or their organs are not in good enough condition to use, aggravating the situation further.

Ahn So-young, a KONOS director, said that the rate of organ donation is lower than in other developed countries. She gave Spain as an example. ``Among one million people, 35 donate their organs, but in Korea, only 2.9 do so,-?-? she said.

Kim Mi-young, another employee at KONOS, said that organ donation is a very sensitive issue for many people, and that no one can force or ask for it easily. ``It may be painful for the families of the patients, but their decision can make all the difference to others,-?-? she said.

The Korea Times