A first-ever regulation
on organ donation coordinator management
will be issued this week by the
National Organ Donation Management Center
to make it easier for the
public to donate organs.
The
200-plus coordinators at the center
will be evaluated and licensed,
according to the regulation, said Gao
Xinpu, a division director at the
center.
"A team of at
least 2,000 coordinators will be set
up across the mainland. Their main
job will be to identify potential
organ donors, approach their families
and inform them of a possible
donation, and handle issues like the
donor's funeral," he told China
Daily on Monday.
Gao said
many coordinators will come from
medical institutions, including transplant
hospitals, which are in a position
to encounter potential
donors.
When a donation is
secured, the coordinators "will enter
the information on the donor and
donated organ into a computerized
registry, and inform a designated
organ procurement organization for further
distribution," he said.
The
registry system will be launched in
September or October, Gao
said.
Meanwhile, transplant hospitals
have been busy building up their
own organizations to handle identifying
potential donors, referral, organ donation
medical evaluation, allocation, removal,
reservation and transportation, said Huang
Jiefu, director of the China Organ
Donation Committee and the former
vice-minister of health.
Currently,
transplant hospitals may establish such
organizations, but in the future,
Huang expects organ procurement organizations
will be independent entities that
operate within a designated
area.
Huang said the National
Health and Family Planning Commission
will soon issue regulations ordering
compulsory use of a software-based
organ allocation system.
"Only
medical indicators such as the
severity of the patients' disease,
waiting time and organ match situation
are ranked during the process," he
said, adding that the process is
free from human
intervention.
Gao, however,
disagrees.
Implementing compulsory
use could hurt transplant hospitals,
which might fear that the organs
they harvest will be distributed to
others, he said.
Meanwhile,
the proximity of the donor to
the recipient is also considered
during the process, said Zhu Jiye,
chief surgeon at Peking University
People's Hospital.
"As long
as hospitals can use the system
accordingly, we welcome the initiative,"
he said.
Beijing currently
does not have a public organ
donor system. A trial system that
did not include the capital was
launched in 2010 by the National
Health and Family Planning Commission
and the Red Cross Society of
China. It has expanded to about 19
regions of the mainland.
Zhu
said Beijing still relies on executed
prisoners as a major source of
organ donations.
"But the
number of organs harvested this way
just kept plummeting. So it's
time to push forward the public
organ donation system," he
said.
According to Huang, the
Red Cross Society is responsible for
raising public awareness of lifesaving
organ donations, setting up a
volunteer registry and helping train
donation coordinators.
The rest
of the responsibilities, such as
licensing coordinators, allocating donated
organs, and the management and
supervision of transplant hospitals, are
under the jurisdiction of the National
Health and Family Planning
Commission.
"The Red Cross
could serve as a third-party
supervisor," Huang said.
Zhu
agreed, adding that public organ
donation work could begin in Beijing
even without local Red Cross
participation.
Huang said that
building strong organ procurement
organizations is the foundation of the
donation and allocation
system.
He expects that a
professionally trained organ coordinator
under an organ procurement organization
will be stationed at each hospital
to improve the efficiency of potential
donor detection and
referrals.
Also, given that
the coordinating work is highly
professional and involves dealing with
hospitals, "they should only be
recognized and licensed by the top
health authority," he
said.
Gao has a different
outlook.
"In practice, all
stakeholders have to work in line
with existing rules and regulations,"
he said, citing the upcoming
regulation on coordinator
management.
Gao said shedding
the direct connection between coordinators
and transplant hospitals or organ
procurement organizations could better ensure
a fair practice.
