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Taiwan people urged not to
go to China for transplants
2006/10/15
TAIPEI, CNA
The Department of Health's (DOH's) position is not to
encourage Taiwan
nationals to receive organ transplants in China, the
director general of the
DOH's Bureau of Medical Affairs said
yesterday.
Hsueh Jui-yuan made the explanation at a public hearing
on organ
transplants, which was held by Legislator Lai Chin-teh of the
ruling
Democratic Progressive Party at the Legislative Yuan after
Mainland Affairs
Council chief Joseph Wu condemned a day earlier
China's alleged harvesting
of organs from executed Falung Gong
practitioners.
Hsueh said that although China has hosted more
Taiwan patients for organ
transplant than any other country has in
recent years, his bureau refuses to
list China as a place to receive
organ transplants because of its
controversial human rights reputation
and questionable quality in terms of
performing operations. In this
regard, the DOH has also instructed
professional medical care
personnel to refrain from arranging organ
transplants in China for
Taiwan nationals, Hsueh noted.
The hearing was also attended by
Chou Chang-chin, a prosecutor of the Taiwan
High Prosecutors Office,
and Taiwan Society of Nephrology Secretary-General
Chen Yung-ming, as
well as three human rights activists from Canada and the
United States
-- David Matas, a human rights lawyer who co-authored the
Report into
Allegations of Organ Harvesting of Falun Gong Practitioners in
China;
David Kilgour, a former Canadian secretary of state for Asia-Pacific
and Latin America; and Wang Wenyi, a China-born pathologist who had
worked
at Mount Sinai Hospital in the United States.
Explaining Taiwan's existing laws regulating citizens receiving
organ
transplants in China, Chou warned that it is possible for them
to be charged
with murder, or complicity in murder, if it is
discovered that their organ
transplants had been the cause of an
individual's execution or murder.
Echoing Chou's remarks, Chen urged
Taiwanese patients to be very cautious in
receiving organ transplants
in China, otherwise they might be "killing
another person in order to
save their own lives without even knowing it."
http://www.chinapost.com.tw/taiwan/detail.asp?ID=92809&GRP=B
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