(Minghui.org) The World Organisation to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong (WOIPFG) has investigated organisations and individuals who are involved in harvesting organs from live Falun Gong practitioners since the disclosure of the atrocity in China in 2006. WOIPFG recently announced a list of 865 hospitals and 9,500 medical professionals involved.
The investigation revealed that the number of hospitals and organ transplants increased tremendously after 1999, which corresponds to the beginning of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)'s persecution campaign against Falun Gong. At least 865 hospitals quickly expanded or began performing organ transplants. The hospitals are located throughout 22 provinces, 5 autonomous regions, and 4 province-level municipalities in China.
Based on postings on Chinese hospital websites and papers published in medical journals, these hospitals completed transplants of at least 176,267 kidneys, 40,170 livers, and 137,294 corneas through September 2014.
The report exposes only the tip of the iceberg. Many hospitals did not report their total number of organ transplants. Military hospitals regard the information as military secrets and do not disclose such information at all.
The Communist regime has admitted harvesting organs from executed prisoners under pressure from the international community since 2006. But the number of death sentences decreases year by year, which is inconsistent with the exponential growth in organ transplants since 2000. Trials of voluntary organ donation in China started in 2010. There are few voluntary organ donors. The first voluntary organ donation registration system started in March 2014. The source of most organ transplants in China remains a mystery.
The former Minister of Health for the Chinese People’s Liberation Army General Logistics Department, Bai Shuzhong, said in a telephone call that the order to kill Falun Gong practitioners and harvest their organs came from former Communist Party leader Jiang Zemin.
“Back then it was from Chairman Jiang,” said Bai. “Under his orders, many of us had done a lot of work to eliminate Falun Gong. To be fair, kidney transplantation is not limited to military [hospitals].” The audio file of the call was published by WOIPFG in September 2014.
Shockingly large number of transplants and multiple operations done at the same time
The Chinese Liver Transplant Registry reported that Shen Zhongyang and his colleagues in Tianjin No. 1 Hospital and Armed Police General Hospital had completed 6,270 liver transplants through 2010. But he conducted only ten such operations from 1994 to 1999.
The Organ Transplant Centre in the First Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-Sen University conducted over 4,000 kidney and 1500 liver transplants through December 2013. The First Affiliated Hospital of Xi'an Jiaotong University conducted over 3,700 kidney transplants and instructed 23 hospitals in 13 provinces to perform over 10,000 kidney transplants in the same period.
The First Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang University conducted more than 3,200 kidney transplants through May 2012, seven times as many as in 1999, and performed over 1,500 liver transplants through July 2014.
The Southeastern News Express reported on March 6th, 2014, that Director Jiang Yi and his 16 surgeons in the Hepatobiliary Surgery Department of Fuzhou General Hospital of Nanjing Military Region completed five liver transplant procedures within 17 hours on February 18th, 2014.
According to the lead surgeon, Jiang Yi, who is also the director of the department, five patients were waiting for the livers at the hospital. The five “donors” “died” on the same day, and all five livers were transplanted successfully in 17 hours.
The Guangzhou Daily reported on March 14th, 2006, that the reporter witnessed concurrent operations of five liver and six kidney transplants in the First Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-Sen University. The record in the transplant centre was 19 kidneys and 6 livers in one day.
The investigation revealed that the General Logistics Department of the People's Liberation Army set up a central database for a living organ bank. The database includes the identity of detained Falun Gong practitioners and other pertinent information, such as their blood type.
The General Logistics Department is responsible for the security of the secret camps where prisoners are held, managing the availability of organs for the hospitals, as well organ transportation, accounting, and security. Military and police hospitals are major players in the transplant industry, but they sometimes sell organs to civilian hospitals to attract foreign patients while making a small profit.
One military doctor working for the Logistics Department of Shenyang Military Region told foreign media, “Due to the large live organ source, the real number of organ transplants in China would at least triple the publicised numbers in state media. If the government said it was 30,000 cases in a year, the real numbers could be 110,000 a year.” He also said that China is the centre of a global network and has provided more than 85% of all organs for transplantation around the world since 2000.
Plenty of donors with excellent health, fresh organs, and short waits
“Warm ischaemia time” refers to the time that a tissue, organ, or body part remains at body temperature after its blood supply is reduced or cut off but before it is cooled or reconnected to a blood supply. Minimising ischaemia time results better organ quality and a higher success rate for transplantation.
The Affiliated Hospital of Nanjing Medical School stated that the warm ischaemia time for 120 donor livers for transplantation from 2005 to 2007 was from 0 to 10 minutes, and less than 4 minutes on average.
The No. 2 Artillery General Hospital stated that the warm ischaemia time of 103 livers from young healthy donors from 2004 to 2007 was 0 to 5 minutes. The warm ischaemia time of 240 donor livers in Changzheng Hospital of No. 2 Military Medical University in Shanghai from 2001 to 2004 was 0 to 8 minutes. This indicates that the livers were removed from live donors, who were killed in the process.
These hospitals claim waiting time for organs is short, and even emergency transplantation can be done. Among 120 liver transplants in Changzheng Hospital of No. 2 Military Medical University in Shanghai from 2003 to 2006, the organ recipients were patients of severe hepatitis with an average life expectancy of only three days. One recipient received a liver transplant four hours after being taken to the emergency department.
The First Affiliated Hospital of the Medical School of Zhejiang University conducted 46 emergency liver transplants from January 2000 to December 2004. All of the 46 patients received waited less than 72 hours.
Yunnan Kidney Disease Hospital claimed on its website that it is an “organ transplantation hospital in which donors look for recipients”, “guarantees to find healthy kidneys within the shortest time”, “provides organs with the shortest warm ischaemia time”, and “conducts organ transplants every week”. It even provides a guarantee that “if [the transplantation is] not successful, it will be conducted again until it is successful.”
Such guarantees are established on the basis of having a large number of donors. They suggest that organ transplantation hospitals in China conduct killings on demand.
Most hospitals started transplantation after 1999 for lucrative profit
Various hospitals and medical facilities in China started or expanded organ transplantation after the Communist regime initiated the persecution of Falun Gong in 1999.
The Organ Transplantation Centre of Beijing University was established in October 2001. It carried out liver, kidney, pancreas, heart, cornea, and bone marrow transplants. It had completed transplantation of nearly 2,000 kidneys and more than 900 livers through December 2013. The Organ Transplantation Institute of Armed Police was established in April 2002. It had completed transplantation of nearly 2,000 livers and 1,000 kidneys through May 2014.
The hospitals involved in organ harvesting have made enormous profits. No. 309 Hospital, named the “Military Organ Transplantation Centre” by the General Logistics Department of the Ministry of Health, saw its revenues surge from 30 million Yuan (GBP £3.1 million) in 2006 to 230 million Yuan (GBP £24 million) in 2010. The Affiliated Daping Hospital of No. 3 Military Medical School saw a huge increase in revenue from 36 million Yuan (GBP £3.7 million) in 2006 to 900 million Yuan (GBP £93.4 million) in 2009, an approximately 25-fold increase.
Professor Arthur Caplan, former director of the Bioethics Centre at the University of Pennsylvania, said that it is “a shame of mankind” that “killing on demand” to harvest organs has happened frequently in China and lasted for over a decade.
Investigation list
Medical professionals involved in removing organs from live prisoners of conscience include doctors, nurses, anaesthetists, and so on.
The 100 military hospitals and armed police hospitals involved in forced live organ harvesting are:
Military Hospitals Under Direct Control of Central Military Commission
- PLA (People Liberation Army) General Hospital
- The First Affiliated Hospital (Hospital 304) of PLA General Hospital
- PLA Hospital 309
General Hospitals of Different Military Branches
- PLA Navy General Hospital
- PLA Air Force General Hospital
- PLA Missile Branch General Hospital
Affiliated Hospitals of Military Universities
- South Hospital of South Medical University (the former No. 1 Affiliated Hospital of the No. 1 Military Medical University)
- Zhujiang Hospital of South Medical University (the Former No. 2 Affiliated Hospital of the No. 1 Military Medical University)
- Affiliated Changzheng Hospital of PLA No. 2 Military Medical University
- Affiliated Changhai Hospital of the No. 2 Military Medical University
- Affiliated Eastern Hepatobiliary Surgery Hospital of the No. 2 Military Medical University
- Affiliated Daping Hospital of the No. 3 Military Medical University
- Affiliated Southwest Hospital of the No. 3 Military Medical University
- Affiliated Xinqiao Hospital of the No. 3 Military Medical University
- Affiliated Xijing Hospital of the No. 4 Military Medical University
- Tangdu Hospital of the No. 4 Military Medical University
General Hospitals in Military Regions
- Beijing Military Region General Hospital
- Nanjing Military Region General Hospital in Nanjing
- Nanjing Military Region General Hospital in Fuzhou
- Guangzhou Military Region General Hospital in Guangzhou
- Guangzhou Military Region General Hospital in Wuhan
- Jinan Military Region General Hospital
- Shenyang Military Region General Hospital
- Chengdu Military Region General Hospital
- Lanzhou Military Region General Hospital in Lanzhou
- Lanzhou Military Region General Hospital in Urumqi
- Chengdu Military Region General Hospital in Kunming
- Tibet Military Region General Hospital
Beijing Military Region
- PLA Hospital 302
- PLA Hospital 307
- PLA Hospital 281
- Affiliated Hospital of Air Force Aviation Medical Research Institute
- Affiliated Bayi Children Hospital of Beijing Military General Hospital
- PLA Hospital 254
- PLA Air Force Hospital in Tianjin (Hospital 464)
- PLA Hospital 251
- PLA Bethune International Peace Hospital
- PLA Hospital 322
- PLA Hospital 264
Nanjing Military Region
- PLA Hospital 117
- PLA Hospital 81
- PLA Hospital 180
- PLA Hospital 101
- PLA Hospital 97
- PLA Hospital 174
- PLA Hospital 175
- PLA Hospital 476
- PLA Hospital 105
- PLA Hospital 94
- PLA Hospital 85
- PLA Hospital 455
- Songjiang Branch of PLA Hospital 455
Guangzhou Military Region
- PLA Hospital 181
- PLA Hospital 303
- PLA Hospital 161
- PLA Hospital 458
- PLA Hospital 477
- PLA Hospital 457
- PLA Hospital 187
Jinan Military Region
- PLA Hospital 401
- PLA Hospital 107
- PLA Hospital 153
- PLA Hospital 89
- Yanzhou Hospital 91
- PLA Hospital 88
- PLA Hospital 150
- PLA Hospital 371
- PLA Hospital 159
Shenyang Military Region
- PLA Hospital 463
- PLA Hospital 201
- PLA Hospital 202
- PLA Hospital 205
- Harbin Hospital 242
- Affiliated Hospital of Jilin Pharmacy Hospital (former Affiliated Hospital of Jilin Military Medical College)
Chengdu Military Region
- PLA Hospital 452
- PLA Hospital 59
- PLA Hospital 44
- PLA Hospital 324
Lanzhou Military Region
- Lanzhou Military Region Hospital 474
- PLA Number 3 Hospital
- PLA Hospital 451
Armed Police Hospitals
- The General Hospital of Armed Police
- Affiliated Hospital of Armed Police Medical College
- Shanxi Corps Hospital of Armed Police
- Shaanxi Corps Hospital of Armed Police
- Number 2 Hospital of Beijing Corps of Armed Police
- The Central Hospital of Beijing Prison Management Bureau
- Tianjin Police Hospital
- Hebei Corps Hospital of Armed Police
- Anhui Corps Hospital of Armed Police
- Jiangxi Corps Hospital of Armed Police
- Fujian Corps Hospital of Armed Police
- Shanghai Corps Hospital of Armed Police
- Hubei Corps Hospital of Armed Police
- Guangdong Public Security Border Defense Hospital
- Guangdong Corps Hospital of Armed Police
- Shandong Border Defense Corps Hospital of Armed Police
- Henan Corps Hospital of Armed Police
- Sichuan Corps Hospital of Armed Police
- Ningxia Corps Hospital of Armed Police