New blood-for-sale business
By Zhang Xuanchen |
November 11, 2010, Thursday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
TO overcome recent blood shortages in Beijing hospitals, a business has sprung up selling the blood of hired donors to people requiring transfusions.
The donors, mostly migrant workers or students, are paid about 300 yuan (US$45.2) for 400 cubic centimeters, for which middlemen charge buyers between 1,300 and 1,600 yuan, reported Beijing Times yesterday.
The middleman usually asks the donor to pretend to be the recipient's relative, as under Chinese law a patient receives priority in the use of blood of any type if a relative has made a donation.
Inadequate identity checks at many Beijing hospitals have made it an easy for bogus relatives to dupe the authorities.
Doctors don't bother to match a face with the photograph on an identity card, which has led many donors to use cards borrowed from a patient's real relatives, said a veteran middleman with the surname Cao.
He said donors were asked to conceal any illness that could disqualify them from giving blood.
Authorities said police had been notified, and warned patients not to use blood from unfamiliar people.
Beijing Municipal Bureau of Health said the city now had sufficient stocks of blood.
The donors, mostly migrant workers or students, are paid about 300 yuan (US$45.2) for 400 cubic centimeters, for which middlemen charge buyers between 1,300 and 1,600 yuan, reported Beijing Times yesterday.
The middleman usually asks the donor to pretend to be the recipient's relative, as under Chinese law a patient receives priority in the use of blood of any type if a relative has made a donation.
Inadequate identity checks at many Beijing hospitals have made it an easy for bogus relatives to dupe the authorities.
Doctors don't bother to match a face with the photograph on an identity card, which has led many donors to use cards borrowed from a patient's real relatives, said a veteran middleman with the surname Cao.
He said donors were asked to conceal any illness that could disqualify them from giving blood.
Authorities said police had been notified, and warned patients not to use blood from unfamiliar people.
Beijing Municipal Bureau of Health said the city now had sufficient stocks of blood.
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