Medical staff at a kidney disease center in east China are urging the government to develop a law that will encourage organ donations, as 90 percent of the patients across China aren't receiving life-saving kidney transplants.

"The hospital performs more than 200 kidney transplants each year, but there are still a large number of patients who have a long and painful wait for donated kidneys," said Chen Jianghua, a doctor at the Kidney Disease Center of the No. 1 Hospital affiliated to the Medical School of Zhejiang University.

The severe shortage of donors means the lives of many patients depend on dialysis. The center performs about 110 dialysis procedures everyday or 40,000 a year, according to Chen, who declined to say how many of his patients die waiting for a transplant operation.

The hospital is calling for a new law that will allow doctors to declare people brain dead so their organs can be used to save the lives of people with curable diseases.

Nationally, about 8,000 kidney transplants are performed a year, accounting for less than 10 percent of patients who need the operation, according to statistics with the organ transplant committee of the Chinese Medical Association.

A national survey of people suffering from chronic kidney disease shows that 8 to 10 percent of the population over the age of 40 suffer from chronic kidney disease in China.

(Xinhua News Agency January 7, 2007)