Chinese hospital staff accused of illegal organ harvesting
- Doctor among six people charged over the removal of a woman’s organs at a hospital in Nanjing
Six medical staff, including a doctor, have been arrested in China on suspicion of illegally harvesting organs from a patient.
The patient, Li Ping, had been left brain-dead after her son attacked her with an axe in Anhui province in the country’s southeast in February last year, Thepaper.cn reported on Wednesday.
Li’s other son, Shi Xianglin, who was also wounded in the attack, said the family was told that they would be given 200,000 yuan (US$28,300) in “government subsidies” if they agreed to donate Li’s organs, and she was taken to a hospital in Nanjing where the procedure was carried out.
But he became suspicious after noticing that the form authorising the transplant had not been filled in correctly and contacted the China Organ Donation Administrative Centre.
He said the head of the intensive care unit in Huaiyan county, Yang Suxun, had told the family that he had applied for the “highest level” of government subsidies, but staff from the Red Cross, which helps run the organ donor centre, told him the government did not pay for donations.