Up to 1 million people currently suffer renal disease in China and the numbers are rising. Some 5,500 people received kidney transplants last year, the highest number in Asia.

Many sufferers ran up huge medical bills over several months as they waited for a date for an operation to come through.

Shi Bingyi, a doctor from No 309 Hospital of the People's Liberation Army in Beijing, said: "Because of a big shortfall in kidney donations, most patients have to wait half a year, during which time they must pay for expensive treatment just to stay alive."

The doctor operated at the weekend on Yang Jie who suffers from uremia, a condition resulting from advanced stages of kidney failure.

Yang's younger brother died of the same disease in 2000 after being unable to afford high medical fees.

Shi and colleague Que Shijie, from the Medical School of Taiwan University in Taipei, transplanted a kidney from Yang's mother into the 22-year-old farmer in a five-hour operation.

The annual number of organ transplants in the nation ranks second in the world behind the United States.

And more people now are lucky enough to have kidneys donated by their relatives.

Cai Ming, an expert in kidney operations at the Hospital, said: "Compared with donations from other sources, transplants from a close relative have many advantages.

"They have a smaller chance of rejection, which means a lot of money can be saved on treatment following the operation."

Clinical experiments show that the average life expectancy of a patient who has received the kidney of a relative is 19.5 years from the date of the operation.

The longest life span recorded in the country for such patients is 24 years and the patient is still living. The world record is 40 years.

"Many types of illness can be cured via organ transplantation and China now has mature organ transplanting technology," said Qian Yeyong, deputy director of the transplantation department of the military hospital.

"We are looking forward to enacting the Organ Donation Law and to legally recognize brain death. This will greatly benefit the development of organ transplants in China."

Yang Yunshan, father of the 22-year-old, said: "My wife and I would do anything to save him so he can live on."

Both mother and son were in a stable condition last night.

(China Daily November 5, 2002)