Trial ends for alleged organ traders  

地下團(tuán)伙租用民房充當(dāng)手術(shù)室 販腎牟利近百萬

一個“草臺班子”團(tuán)伙，租用民間私房充當(dāng)手術(shù)室，通過網(wǎng)絡(luò)聯(lián)系腎臟出賣和植入對象，召集陜西“團(tuán)隊(duì)”跨省開刀移植器官，牟利近百萬由該團(tuán)伙瓜分……備受社會關(guān)注的武漢“地下販腎”案近日開庭審理，庭審披露的相關(guān)細(xì)節(jié)令人震驚。[查看全文]

A trial closed for a group of a dozen alleged kidney traders at a district court in Wuhan on Monday, the first case of its kind in Hubei province after the act was deemed illegal by China's 2011 Criminal Law.

The verdict on the six cases of illegal kidney trade has yet to be announced, but if found guilty the traders can be fined and sentenced up to five years. If the case is "serious," the sentence can be longer than five years, the law states, without indicating how much.

Two people were instrumental in organizing six kidney transplants from the end of 2012 to August 2013, each costing between from 170,000 yuan ($27,217) to 360,000 yuan, a Jiangxia District People's Court press release announced on Monday.

One person bought surgical equipment and drugs, renting an apartment in Jiangxia district as an operating theater.

An unnamed doctor from a hospital in Shaanxi province performed the operations.

The 10 other accused connected kidney buyers and sellers on the Internet.

The organizers earned 400,000 yuan for the trade and the surgeon bagged 80,000 yuan an operation, more than six months' salary, the Xinhua News Agency reported.

Transplant surgery has high standards at hospitals, said He Xiaoshun, vice president of the No. 1 Hospital Affiliated with Sun Yat-sen University. Without proper checks and standards, he warned, underground surgery can be harmful to patients and donors.

"There are only 169 qualified hospitals in China," He said. "They are all big, grade-three, first-class hospitals. It's against national regulations to operate without qualifications."

Organ transplants usually involve a donated organ, he explained. Regulations stipulate recipient and donor should be related if organs are to be taken from a living person.

"There are strict regulations about the health condition of the relative that require all kinds of examinations and reports from different departments," He said.

These trades are happening at such a high frequency as there's such a high demand for organ transplants, Henan-based lawyer Cui Xinjiang told the Global Times.

The demand for organ transplants in China is 200,000 to 300,000 a year, former deputy health minister Huang Jiefu said in 2012. About 10,000 receive operations.

A search for "kidney selling" on baidu.com begets 7,050,000 results, many containing phone numbers and messages begging for kidneys.

The law alone won't "completely" prevent organ trade, Cui said. More publicity is needed to help people obtain legal transplants, he said.