Beijing has proposed 13 hospitals for approval to conduct human organ transplants, a month after China's first regulations on transplants went into effect prohibiting the trade in human organs.

The Beijing Municipal Health Bureau has listed the hospitals and the specific transplant surgery they can carry out on its official website (www.bjhb.gov.cn) until June 24 to solicit public opinions and submissions.

The bureau had assessed hospitals that had applied to conduct human organ transplant surgery and selected the first group of 13 qualified hospitals, a bureau statement said.

The list includes Beijing Anzhen Hospital for heart and lung transplants, the China-Japan Friendship Hospital for liver, kidney and lung transplants, and the Beijing Union Medical College Hospital for liver and kidney transplants.

"If someone puts forward objections to these hospitals, the health authorities will investigate them carefully and thoroughly and make a final conclusion based on the facts," the statement said.

"No other medical institutions are allowed to carry out human organ transplants without approval from local health authorities. If they do, they will be punished according to the law," it said.

Other Chinese provinces, municipalities and regions, such as Heilongjiang, Shanghai, Jiangsu, Shandong, Anhui and Shandong, are also drawing up approved hospital lists as required by the Ministry of Health.

Nationwide, about 600 hospitals and clinics that had conducted transplants have submitted applications to continue, but the Ministry of Health announced in April that only 160 medical institutions -- in the first group -- have been licensed for transplant surgery.

"The 'accession system' will help standardize human organ transplant surgery, help medical institutions improve services and guarantee patient benefits," said Zhang Xiaoju, an official with the Heilongjiang Provincial Health Department.

The country faces a huge gap between the demand for functional organs and the number of donations. About 1.5 million people need transplants each year, but only 10,000 can find organs, according to the Ministry of Health.

As a result, some unqualified medical institutions had conducted transplant surgery, endangering lives.

"Human organ transplant, as a matter of life and death, must be treated with the utmost care, and the safety of the general public must be ensured," Vice Health Minister Huang Jiefu has told reporters.

The government had to unify the accession standards or the country would be "in a mess," Huang said.

The country's first set of regulations on human organ transplant, which prohibits organizations and individuals from trading human organs in any form, went into effect on May 1.

Any doctor found to be involved in the human organ trade will have their license revoked, according to the regulations issued by the State Council, China's cabinet.

Clinics will be suspended from doing transplant operations for at least three years. Fines are set at between eight to ten times the value of the outlawed trade, the regulations say.

Officials convicted of trading in human organs will be sacked.

Most organs are donated by ordinary Chinese at death after the voluntary signing of a donation agreement.

Human organ transplants are defined as the process of taking a human organ or part of a human organ -- such as the heart, lung, liver, kidney and pancreas -- from a donor and transplanting it into a patient's body to replace a sick or damaged organ.

(Xinhua News Agency June 13, 2007)