Organs Harvested by Force from Living People

Organs Harvested by Force from Living People
Ma Xiuping, from Dalian City, reveals the injustice her father suffered on the open forums of China's People.com. The local police had frozen Ma's father to harvest his organs.
5/18/2006
Updated:
5/18/2006

On May 13, Ms. Ma Xiuqing from Dalian City, Liaoning Province, posted her story on the Internet using the pen-name “Seeking Justice for Father.” In it, she disclosed crimes committed by the Dalian Police Bureau, Dalian 120 Emergency Center, and the Third Hospital of Dalian, who collaborated to freeze her father, Ma Hongju, to death and steal his organs in August 2000. Ma and her family painstakingly made the Ministry of Public Security launch an investigation into her father’s death in November 2001. Five years have passed, and the case is still not solved. In fact, the investigating officials have transferred the case to the procuratorate, which is a state apparatus responsible for legal supervision, including the arrest of major criminal cases.

Rescue Services Refuse to Help Wounded Man, Attempt To Charge Fee

In her article, “Strong appeal: The Police Department Must Punish the Murderer! Bring Those Who Were Involved to Justice—The Case of Killing People to Steal Their Organs,” Ma Xiuping wrote, “My father Ma Hongju, aged 68, was a senior engineer who retired from a large state-owned enterprise in Dalian. Around 5:30 p.m. on August 14, 2000, shortly after he came home from a business trip, he went to the bathroom. His slippers were wet, and he slipped and fell heavily on the ceramic toilet seat that was not yet fixed steadily to the floor, and broke the toilet. The long and sharp broken shards cut a 6x2cm wound on my father’s right arm. It was the only wound on him. He fainted and fell on the floor.”

“I called the 120 Emergency Center, and my neighbors also called the 110 Police Department. Five minutes later, the policemen from 110 came to my home, but they said, ”The day is too hot for working with blood,” and left the scene.

“Twenty minutes later, an ambulance from 120 arrived at the scene, but the medical personnel refused to provide any emergency treatment such as dressing the wound, monitoring his heart or giving a blood transfusion, etc. The personnel only kept urging us to pay them 300 yuan for showing up, and said that he must hurry to go back with the empty ambulance.

“Indignant, I asked him, ”Why aren’t going you save the patient?“ He replied, ”The 110 policemen told me this person is hopeless.” Afterwards, I learned that the ambulance came across the 110 police van on its way to the scene, and that was when he and the policemen talked.

“I said, ”What does the police know? You are the doctor, and it’s your responsibility to save lives. I didn’t call you here to watch a drama. If you take my father to the hospital, I'll pay you double.“ I put my purse with 3000 yuan in front of him. But still the personnel refused to help, and he just stood at the gate and watched, hands in pocket. ”Later, Director Chen of the 120 Emergency Center explained the doctor’s refusal to help as follows: “Who arrived at the site first? It was 110! 110 wouldn’t help the dying patient, why should 120 do it?” “At that point, my younger brother arrived. After we carried our father from our home on the 6th floor to the ambulance, we urged the driver to drive us to the nearest hospital. But 110 intentionally led the ambulance in the opposite direction, and headed toward the Ganjingzi District Huadong Road Police Station instead of the hospital. At the Police Station, the 120 medical personnel and the policemen talked privately amongst themselves in a separate room, while we were locked with my dying father in the back of the ambulance. We knocked on the widow and called for help, but in vain. Everyone knows how precious every minute is in saving a patient who is loosing blood.

120 Medical Staff Prevented Emergency Rescue

“At 7 p.m., because of our strong insistence, the police van and the ambulance very unwillingly took us to the Third People’s Hospital of Dalian. Even there, they again tried to prevent the rescue. Before the ambulance came to a full stop, the medical care personnel named Yang jumped out of the ambulance and rushed into the emergency room, and anxiously told the doctor, Chang Xinghua, in a low voice, ‘This patient is already dead. You don’t need to rescue him. Just send him to the mortuary directly.’

“Doctor Chang asked, ‘Is there a cardiogram?’ Yang shook his head and said no. Doctor Chang asked again, ‘Is there an emergency treatment record?’ Yang again said no. Doctor Chang was confused and asked, ‘How come you don’t have any of those?’ So Dr. Chang called for other nurses and started to rescue my father around 7:10 p.m. My father still had a pulse at that time (as hospital treatment record can prove). They gave him three IV bags of blood. My father was excreting large amounts of urine, indicating a functioning metabolism. His brain was still alert and active (his eyes would repeatedly half open and shut). The emergency treatment went on smoothly…

“At that point, the 110 police and the 120 medical personnel should have left, but they waited at the hospital gate and watched closely to commit their clandestine intrigue. A collaborative organ theft was in the making.

“At 8:40 p.m. (after only one and a half hours in hospital), the chief of the hospital (director of surgery), Liu Kecheng, burst into my father’s operation room, though he was not on shift that day. He ordered the doctor and nurses to stop the treatment, saying he had ’received orders to take over the patient.' He also ordered the nurse to remove the three vein transfusions. All the family members protested fiercely, so they had to resume the transfusion. Then Liu Kecheng hurriedly left the emergency room and went to his office on the third floor.

“Due to the interference by the head of the hospital, the doctor and nurses soon left the emergency room. I was left trying to take care of the blood and medicine transfusion. At 9:30 p.m. (two hours after we arrived at the hospital), the medical examiner of Dalian Police Bureau, Wang Yingli, went to the emergency room to stop the treatment, accompanied by Ms. Liu Kecheng and the vice director of the hospital. Wang Yingli was in casual dress. He looked my father over from head to toe. He stared at the IV drip and didn’t say a word for some time.

“Then he asked me, ‘Have you experienced the death of any family member?’ I said, ‘No. No one from our family has ever even been to the hospital for treatment.’ He nodded, and said, ‘Your father is already dead. You can take him away now.’ I required him to show his ID, but he said that he hadn’t brought it with him. I felt it was meaningless to argue with him.”

20 Policemen Forcefully Took Away the Patient

“At 11:30 p.m. (4 hours after entering hospital), Wang Jichen, first class police of Dalian Public Security bureau, led 20 policemen to rush into the hospital and ordered me to take my father away, otherwise he would treat me uncivilly. I told him, ‘First, we don’t owe a cent of salvage fee to the hospital, and we gave a red packet of 1000 yuan to the doctor (later it was returned); secondly, we didn’t disturb the normal order of the hospital. I quietly sat beside my father and carefully observed every tiny change. My two brothers sat quietly on the bench as well. Thirdly, my father is a senior engineer, he never violated the law, and he now is still breathing and a heartbeat, why would you want to let him die?’ ”At that time, I felt like a knife was twisting in my heart. I felt that they didn’t have any right to treat us like that. I ran out of the hospital and called 110 using my cell phone. People on the other side of the line replied, ‘We will call you back in half an hour.’ After half an hour I didn’t get any reply, I was so worried and asked for help again, and hoped that the city public security bureau could send police to stop it. However, the reply I got was ‘You had better listen to their arrangement!’ In fact, the architect of the crime was from the Dalian City Public Security Bureau!

“Around 3 a.m. (7 hours after entering the hospital), I saw my father was just about to wake up, the cardiogram changed, and his heartbeat amplitude increased. I was very excited and called the nurse, but the nurse replied coldly without even looking at my father, ‘You go find the doctor.’ I looked everywhere for a doctor, but found no one. I changed three IV bags for my father. However, two minutes later, Wang Jichen (first class police) could not sit still anymore. He waved his hand and ordered, ‘Taken him out of here!’ The police all surrounded my father, my brother tried to stop them, but four policemen pressed his head down and held his arms behind his back. My other brother was besieged by six other people and could not move.

“I ran to my father, but Wang Jichen held a gun against my waist. My heart felt so much pain that I couldn’t breathe. I watched helplessly as four people suddenly pulled off the quilt that was covering my father’s body, removed the three IVs and dragged my still-living father from the bed. I felt very dizzy and could not even cry out. I looked on as my father was roughly carried to a waiting police car. I heard the door of the car slam shut and let out a howl of grief as the car sped away.

“My father was taken to the Dalian Public Security Bureau located in a suburb of Dalian City. He was put into a freezer at the Legal Medical Authentication Center. Later, they harvested his organs and sold him piece by piece.”

Five Years Of Appeals Have Been In Vain

Ma Xiuping’s family has been appealing to the government to investigate her father’s murder ever since 2000. They went to Beijing to the main appeals office many times. In November 2001, the Public Security Bureau decided to investigate her father’s case. The investigation was named “Public Security Bureau Public Appealing Case #4250.” On December 2, 2002, the Public Security Bureau Public Appeals Department sent a letter to the Liaoning Provincial Public Security Bureau, which read, “Ma Xiuping appealed on December 2 that the Dalian City Public Security Bureau violated regulations, surpassed authority, and abused political power to freeze her father to death. Now the case is forwarded to your office for further disposal.”

Ma Xiuping said, “Five years have passed since they opened the investigation and they haven’t done anything! This case should have been tried in the People’s Supreme Court, but the Public Security Bureau has refused to transfer the case!”

The following is a list of documents and references supporting the facts as presented in Ma Xiuping’s article, as well as her contact information:

Hospital salvage record
Hospital agreement for blood transfusion
Hospital application for using blood
Receipt of hospital salvage fee
Two pieces of witness’s testimony
Business cards that were thrown down after the public security bureau staff took away Ma Xiuping’s father
Certificate of senior engineer of the victim
Pictures of victim’s body taken at the Public Security Bureau (material evidence)
Position paper from Dalian City Public Security Bureau regarding the appeal
Civil case verdict from Kekou People’s Court, Dalian City (2000)

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