Chinese Medical Doctors Brokering Organ Transplants Will be Banned from Visiting Taiwan

By Wang Changmin
Reporter of the Liberty Times in Taiwan
10/26/2007

To prevent visiting Chinese medical doctors from illegal solicitation of organ transplants under the cover of scholastic exchanges in Taiwan, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC), Executive Yuan, announced yesterday that before China¹s organ transplantation environment is improved, all the Chinese doctors brokering organ transplants will be banned from visiting Taiwan. For other medical doctors who want to visit Taiwan purely for the purposes of scholastic exchanges, the case will be dealt with separately.

Thorough probe into overseas organ transplants

In addition, the MAC also announced that the Council, along with the Department of Health (DOH), will conduct a thorough investigation into the allegation that some local doctors have been involved in brokering overseas organ transplants. Yang Chiachun, director of MAC¹s Department of Legal Affairs indicated that MAC has identified some local doctors involved in brokering Taiwanese patients¹ organ transplants in China, and that as long as further evidence is confirmed, they shall be subject to administrative and criminal liabilities. He also said that doctors from three or four local hospitals are suspected of involving in the illegal deals.

Mr. Kuang Qingyuan, Sectionchief of MAC¹s Department of Legal Affairs said that as prosecutors are able to exert the power of compulsory disposal to subpoena witnesses and interested parties as well as conduct searches and make seizures, the DOH and the MAC may refer relevant cases to the judicial authorities for further investigation.

Mounting controversies over Organ transplants in China

In view of the fact that Zhu Zhijun, director of the Orient Organ Transplant Center in Tianjin (www.ootc.net) conducted assessments of Taiwanese patients prior to their traveling to China for liver transplants during his visit to Taiwan in March 2007, Legislator Tien Chiuchin, together with representatives from human right organizations and officials from the MAC, the DOH, the Ministry of Justice and the National Immigration Agency, held a joint press conference at the Legislative Yuan and called on the government to launch a thorough probe into the reports that local doctors are engaged in illegal brokering of organ transplants between Taiwan and China.

Were the executed criminals in China really unpardonable or just because transplantable organs are in short supply?² asked Tien Chiuchin. In fact, it has long been a human right controversy that China used organs from death row criminals for transplants. Moreover, the most despicable and horrendous incident were that Falun Gong practitioners were killed and their organs were harvested when they were still alive. The number of victims is hard to calculate, and the Chinese regime has been strongly condemned by international human right organizations. Among the most notorious facilities was the Orient Organ Transplant Center which was renamed from the Tianjin First Central Hospital.

Theresa Chu, an international human rights attorney and Asia Director for American Human Right Association pointed out that Zhu Zhijun is by no means the first Chinese medical doctor coming to Taiwan for solicitation of liver transplants, but she hoped that he would be the last one.

Call on the government to seriously punish medical doctors brokering organ transplants in China

Ms. Chu suggested that Taiwan amend relevant laws as soon as possible and that after having organ transplant operations in China, the patients should report the relevant medical treatments information to the government. As to local medical doctors brokering organ transplants in China, they should be subject to serious punishments by the government, regardless of whether it was free or not.

Yang Chiachun expressed that though China, under mounting international condemnation, promulgated the Regulations on Human Organ Transplantation in May 2007 to ban trade in human organs, it was regrettable that Chinese medical doctors still openly came to Taiwan to solicit local patients seeking organ transplants in China. The MAC would send a letter to its counterpart in China to ask the Chinese regime, pursuant to its Regulations on Human Organ Transplantation, to seriously punish Zhu Zhijun and several other Chinese doctors for their illegal acts in Taiwan.