Woman Married Liver Donor To Rescue Own Brother's Life

Taiwan News

Staff Reporter

A woman who divorced her husband and married a liver donor to save her brother's life drew attention to the nation's organ transplant system, as the government earlier this year lifted a ban allowing organ transplants from living donors up to the so-called fifth degree of kinship.

The marriage however, is viewed by some observers as a case of organ trading. Although the case does not transgress the recently changed regulations, the Department of Health is reviewing the situation, especially with regard to a legal stipulation that clearly states the length of marriage required for organ transplant applicants must a be minimum of two years, or the couple in question should have at least one child.

A representative of Chang Gung Memorial Hospital in Kaohsiung, one of the nation's leading liver transplant hospitals that is currently treating the patient in question, said that a decision on whether the transplant would proceed would be taken after the DOH reaches a verdict.

The legislature passed an amendment to the Organ Donation Regulation relaxing the criteria of kinship between donor and patient from the so-called third degree to the fifth degree after the death of lecturer Chen Hsi-sheng whose death was attributed to liver failure following a fruitless search for a donor.

Taiwan has suffered a shortage of donated organ for a long time, currently the nation's waiting list for new organs is more than 5,000 per year but only 200 of these are fortunate enough to receive organ transplants.

According to statistics from the National Cheng Kung University Hospital, there have been only 19 success liver transplants from 1990 to 2001.

In a bid to reduce the long time waiting, some of the nation's patients travel to China for transplant surgery, which is considered much more risky than receiving new organs in Taiwan.

To deal with organ transplants, the DOH last June founded the Taiwan Organ Registry and Sharing Center. The center, however, has not yet completed collating data for organ availability and demand. Officials from the center explain that there has never been a national system integrating statistics from hospitals around the nation, a problem exacerbated by the fact that some patients repeatedly register with different hospitals.

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This article posted June 26, 2003.