This content was published on May 24, 2023 – 07:54
Hong Kong, May 24 (EFE).- More than 5,000 Hong Kongers have withdrawn from the city’s organ donor registry since last December, a phenomenon initiated as a result of the local government expressing its intention to establish a cross-border mechanism for donation with mainland China.
Hong Kong authorities are discussing the creation of a common donor and organ exchange computer system with mainland China that integrates the existing system at the financial center with China’s Organ Transplant Response System.
The former British colony to date has an independent system for allocating donated organs to patients, and does not have any permanent mechanism for sharing deceased organs with Chinese institutions.
In fact, currently cross-border organ transplants are studied on a case-by-case basis.
The financial center is one of the territories in the world with the lowest rate of organ donation from deceased, and currently has some 350,000 registered among the more than 7 million residents.
Donations of this type have encountered resistance mainly for cultural or religious reasons.
According to data from the Hong Kong Government, since last December 5,785 requests for removal from the centralized registry of organ donors have been received, the month in which a four-month-old Hong Kong girl with heart failure received an organ from China, in the first agreement of this type.
The withdrawal corresponding to five months was “significantly higher than that registered in the past” after verifying that more than half of the applications were not valid, because they were duplicate requests or from people who had never chosen to benefit from the system.
Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee on Tuesday condemned the unusual increase in the number of withdrawal requests, saying police will investigate “suspicious cases.”
Lee said that “it cannot be ruled out that a small number of people have tried to unsubscribe in order to undermine the reputation of the system and increase the administrative burden.”
The authorities further stated that thanks to the new system they plan to put in place, donated organs in the semi-autonomous city and in mainland China can be better utilized when suitable recipients cannot be found in the respective location.
However, according to international practice, donors or their relatives cannot designate specific recipients or request any identity check. Furthermore, relatives of donors cannot access the identity of recipients in advance.
Dr Chau Ka-foon, honorary president of the Hong Kong Sports Transplant Association, told local media that “although it is unknown whether deregistration applicants were dissatisfied with the proposed mechanism, it is possible that people may be unfamiliar with and mistrustful of the mainland Chinese healthcare system.” EFE
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2023-05-24 08:01:26
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