Organ donors commemorated by recipients

Jiang Huan didn't understand his father's decision to donate his organs until an organ donation coordinator told him that the transplant surgery was successful and had helped save a life.

Families of organ donors, alongside the recipients and coordinators, gather at the Chongqing Organ Donation Memorial Park in Bishan district of Southwest China's Chongqing, every Tomb Sweeping Day, or the Qingming Festival in the Chinese lunar calendar, which fell on Tuesday this year. Holding commemorative ceremonies and laying wreaths in solemnity, they pay tribute to the departed for their generosity.

"Hearing that one life was saved due to my father's donation, I realized the greatness of his heart and the true meaning of life," Jiang says. "It feels like his life was extended, and he would continue to accompany me with no goodbye."

In 2010, China officially launched a national pilot program for human organ donation, which gave rise to numerous donation coordinators like Zhou Lijuan. With her mobile phone available 24 hours day and night, Zhou gets used to rushing to hospitals whenever there are any potential organ donors.

"We are often misunderstood, rejected, and even cursed by the family members. But agonizing scenes of patients waiting for organ transplant opportunities always come to my mind first," says Zhou. She adds that the eagerness in the eyes of those patients has motivated her over the years to stand up for her duty.

"It's not how much time you have but how you use it that matters," says a card from a donor's family presented at the memorial park.

A decade ago, Wan Ying, a patient with impaired vision due to marginal corneal degeneration, received a corneal transplant thanks to a deceased donor. "I was in urgent need of a suitable cornea, and my family was almost desperate at that time," Wan says. "I was lucky to be given the priority in receiving the transplant as one of my family members was a registered donor whose cornea was used in 2005."

Now, Wan is thankful for every moment she gets to witness with her loved ones thanks to her improved vision. "The donor in my family is observing the world through the eyes of an organ recipient, as the donor of my new cornea," she says.

Since Chongqing gave the green light to cornea donation in 1980 and started work on human organ donation in 2012, the city has registered donations of 4,929 bodies, 817 organs, and 2,896 corneas.

Zhang Qi, an ophthalmologist at the First Affiliated Hospital of Chongqing Medical University, says that the Chongqing Eye Bank recorded more than 2,700 corneal donations, helping more than 3,300 patients recover their sight.

"Though the figure is still far from enough to meet the mounting need of patients, I believe that more will get involved in the benevolent undertaking and bring hope and light to those suffering from the darkness," Zhang notes.

In recent years, organ donations and transplants in China have gained momentum, allowing those with organ failure to start anew. According to data released on the China Organ Donation Administrative Center website, as of Saturday, more than 4.62 million people had signed up as organ donors.