Japan's Donor Difficulty

One of the biggest health problems for Japan in the last few years has been the serious lack of donors. In the UK, organs were donated from 773 deceased donors over a 12-month period in 2002/03, according to the British Department of Health. In Japan, permission for organs to be donated has only been obtained in 50 cases since 1997.

From www.bbc.co.uk

On the southern Japanese island of Kyushu, another patient, Kenichiro Hokamura, is still recovering from an operation to receive a new kidney he bought in China.
The kidney had belonged to a prisoner who had been executed. Mr Hokamura said he had few regrets about getting help this way.

"Dialysis treatment was just waiting to die. I felt that if I could buy an organ, it would be the start of a second life," he said.

"I feel sorry for the executed man but he was going to die anyway, and now his kidney is contributing to a life again."

It is even harder for young people and children.

The Akaishi family are trying to raise 10m yen ($85,000) in a street collection to pay for a heart transplant for the youngest daughter Shuri.

Japan has no children's organs available because the law says under 15s cannot consent to donate their organs.

So Shuri's father Hiroshi Akaishi knows her only chance of survival is if they can get her treatment overseas.

"10m yen is far beyond what we can find ourselves," he told me while taking a break from collecting.

FULL STORY AT http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/6156925.stm