Tianjin makes organ donations easier

Tianjin municipality on Monday became the first in the country to pass a local regulation specifically aimed at increasing organ donations by standardizing and better supervising the much needed donations.

The Tianjin Human Organ Donation Regulation will take effect from March 1, 2013.

Organs covered by the regulation include the heart, lung, liver, kidney and pancreas. Corneas, which are not an organ, are also covered, Gao Shaolin, director of the legislative affairs committee of the Tianjin Municipal People's Congress Standing Committee, told the Tianjin Daily.

Citizens who want to donate their organs could submit a written statement to the Red Cross Society of China Tianjin Branch and fill out a form.

The donor's immediate relatives also have to consent to the application, and will be given priority in the event they are in need of an organ transplant. Donors' basic funeral expenses will be paid for and their act will be commemorated in the city's organ donor memorial park, according to the regulation.

The regulation also confirmed the legal status of "organ donation coordinators" for the first time. The coordinators are certified employees with the Red Cross Society or medical institutions, who are responsible for identifying potential donors. Their job is to communicate with their family members and help them through the donation process since Tianjin joined a national organ donation pilot program in 2010.

There are existing local regulations in Shenzhen, Guangdong Province and Fujian Province regarding human organ donation and transplant. A staffer with the Red Cross Society of China Tianjin Branch told the Global Times Tuesday that the Tianjin regulation specializes in after death organ donations using professional management and supervision mechanisms.

"Donation registration can be modified or revoked by the applicant. We will also notify the donors that applications might be rejected under certain circumstances such as cancer. We still need to respect their dedication," he said.

Chinese funeral tradition required that a person's entire body should be left intact after death.

Gao said that the regulation aims to promote the notion of respect for life and science, and gradually change the tradition.

Zhao Yonghua, 67, started an organ donation promotion group with more than 500 volunteers to help applicants deal with donation procedures, after he and his wife both registered as donors in 2002. "The regulation will make our job easier since people can see that the government supports and respects organ donations," Zhao said.

According to the Ministry of Health, about 1.5 million people in China need organ transplants every year, but only about 10,000 operations can be performed annually due to a lack of available organs.