4 Chinese Doctors Jailed For Illegally Harvesting Patients' Organs

Six people, including four doctors, have been jailed in China for illegally harvesting organs from dead patients.

The doctors performed illegal surgeries on dead patients after tricking the relatives into believing that they were making official organ donations. Three of them worked as organ procurement officers at their respective hospitals. They were found guilty of harvesting organs from 11 patients between 2017 and 2018, reported South China Morning Post.

The group targeted accident victims or patients who suffered cerebral hemorrhage at the Huaiyuan County People's Hospital in Anhui, a province in eastern China.

Yang Suxun, the former head of the intensive care unit at the hospital, approached the relatives of such patients and persuaded them to agree to donate the organs. The relatives were then made to sign illegal consent forms.

Investigators found that the organs were then removed by the doctors after secretly wheeling the bodies into a delivery van disguised as an ambulance. The harvested kidneys and livers were then sold to individuals or other hospitals illegally.

The incident came to light when Shi Xianglin, son of one of the victims, grew suspicious after checking the organ donation documents his family signed in 2018. Xianglin and his mother, Li Ping, were left in a coma after they met with an accident. At the time, his father and sister were tricked into signing an organ donation form and one of his relatives reportedly received a "subsidy" of 200,000 yuan ($30,000).

Months after his mother's death, Xianglin noticed several blank sections in the consent form. He also discovered that there were no official records about his mother's organ donation with provincial authorities or the China Organ Donation Administrative Centre in Beijing.

He was reportedly offered a large sum of money when he raised the issue with Suxun. "That's when I was sure that something very strange was going on," he said, reported the BBC. He alerted the authorities, who began an investigation into the incident.

In July, a court found the gang guilty and sentenced them to jail between 10 and 28 months. However, the incident came to public attention only after Xianglin spoke to local media recently.

The court found that the group falsified medical records and did not follow WHO guidelines while performing organ donation surgeries. The Red Cross Society of China (RCSC) is authorized to oversee the organ donation system in China. The surgeries were performed without the presence of an RCSC staff or the relatives of the victims. They were also found guilty of insulting dead bodies, a charge punishable up to three years of imprisonment.

In 2019, there were reports that about 1.5 million prisoners in China were killed for their organs. China Tribunal, an independent body, reported $1 billion worth of organ trade in China.