Unlike other national legislators who were busy preparing for the opening of the annual session of the top legislature, Chen Jingyu, a leading lung transplant surgeon, had additional duties to perform.
On Mar 4, Chen, a deputy to the National People's Congress from Jiangsu province, conducted a six-hour lung transplant for a man suffering bilateral bronchiectasis and respiratory failure at China-Japan Friendship Hospital.
One day earlier, he performed a transplant for a woman who suffered from serious pulmonary fibrosis. Both transplants were successful.
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Chen Jingyu, a leading lung transplant surgeon from Wuxi People's Hospital, conducts a lung transplant for a man suffering bilateral bronchiectasis and respiratory failure at China-Japan Friendship Hospital on Mar 4. [Photo provided to China Daily] |
Chen, deputy head of Wuxi People's Hospital, said that hundreds of patients from across the country came to Wuxi in Jiangsu to receive transplants at his hospital. To save them the journey, Chen and his team initiated a project with the Beijing hospital where similar transplants can be conducted.
When Chen arrived in Beijing on the evening of Mar 2, he learned that there was one donated lung available in Liuyang, Hunan province, and that it was a perfect match for the woman patient who had been waiting for a donated lung for three months.
Through a "green channel" for long-distance organ transportation, the donated lung was sent to the Beijing hospital within six hours.
The green channel was Chen's idea. Two years ago, he made a suggestion to the NPC that such a green channel be set up on civil aviation, high-speed rail and cross-provincial highways for the speedy transport of donated organs.
