China mulls policies to spur organ donations

BEIJING - China is considering an organ transplant system that incorporates measures to encourage public organ donations, as the country plans to end its reliance on organs harvested from condemned prisoners, a senior health official has said.

Out of concern for organ donors' personal difficulties and their expenditures on medical treatment prior to donations, the government is planning to offer them compensation such as reduced medical charges, tax reductions, favorable tuition fees and funeral expenses, Vice Minister of Health Huang Jiefu said Thursday.

Huang was speaking in Guangzhou, the capital city of South China's Guangdong province, after performing an organ transplant surgery with his own hands in a bid to raise public awareness on organ donation.

Huang made the comments, as quoted in a report from chinanews.com, after he revealed on Wednesday that the country will end its reliance on organ transplants from condemned prisoners within two years, as a human organ donation trial project has proven successful.

The trial project, which ran from March 2010 to September 2012, generated 465 donation cases from the public, totalling 1,279 organs, according to Huang.

According to Huang, such compensation policies will be mainly carried out by the Red Cross Society of China.