What if Your Role as a Doctor is Killing instead of Saving?

This real life story was told to HRC anonymously. After careful consideration, we decided to publish this story. The story is written from a first-person angle. We have removed sensitive information to protect the stakeholders involved.

I will never forget that night in 2018, not until the day I die. That day, I invited a guy over that I met online. He looked extremely exhausted and nervous. I poured him a glass of whiskey, he gulped it down, and I asked him if he would like to have another. He said yes. After a few drinks, he suddenly started wailing. I was scared when he started crying, fearing that he was taking drugs. I was also afraid that he might attack me, thinking about the items I could pick up for self-defence if he attacks me.

He cried for so long. I finally asked him what happened after I made sure that he wasn’t offensive.
“Can I let off some steam to you? I can’t hold it in anymore.” He continued, “I am a doctor, and I work at XX hospital.”
“Oh, that sounds good,” I replied automatically, as working as a doctor is generally considered to be prestigious in this part of society.
“No, it’s not! That’s not good at all!” the doctor bellowed hysterically, “I work there to remove cornea from felons!”

“We are not allowed to use anaesthesia. They all shouted themselves hoarse in agony!”

I gasped. I wasn’t sure if I’d got it wrong. But then, the doctor continued with his story. He dreadfully describing the horrific details of him working on the front line of organ harvesting.

He expressed his hatred towards people who are demanding these organs, especially some powerful politicians and business people in Taiwan and Hong Kong. Because apart from supplying the Chinese Communist Party leaders – based on his understanding – organs were sold to Taiwanese, Hong Kongers, and ethnic Chinese in South East Asia for winning over political support. The organ replacement services provided by China are attractive to some people, but organs could be forcefully harvested from people who are alive without any anaesthetics.

I thought of a distant relative who travelled to China for liver replacement, suddenly feeling a chill running down my spine.

“I know that there was a doctor who couldn’t stand the living hell, and (s)he almost brokedown. At last, (s)he escaped abroad.” The doctor continued, “But once the doctor has escaped, the passports of the other co-workers in her/his medical team were confiscated, and these people can never leave China for the rest of their lives, not even to Hong Kong.”

He was hollow-eyed as he was telling me the story. That was the first time I have ever seen the so-called “eyes being set deeply in hollows” as described in the novels. There was no lights in his eyes, just complete desperation. “I hate that I was a straight-A student. I was assigned to this high-skilled work because I was top three in my class.”

He told me to never donate or transfuse blood in China. Once your blood information is imported into the Chinese database, and if a senior official needs your organ, you never know what can happen to you.

We talked through the night. Before he left, I poured him a final glass. “It’s dawn, have this glass.” I watched him returning to his everyday life, back to his hellish work.

If the price of living is becoming a killer, creating agony, and becoming an accomplice of a distorted system that leaves no human dignity, what would you do? I suddenly thought about the verse that repeatedly appears in Matthew 16:25 and Luke 17:33: “Whoever seeks to preserve his life will lose it.”

Organ harvesting/trafficking is a type of modern slavery.

Other evidence related to organ trafficking includes:
Forbes. China Killing Prisoners To Harvest Organs For Transplant: BMC Report Accuses China Of ‘Falsifying’ Data. https://www.forbes.com/sites/zakdoffman/2019/11/16/china-covers-up-killing-of-prisoners-to-harvest-organs-for-transplant-new-report/?sh=6216746b2ec7

The Guardian. China is harvesting organs from detainees, tribunal concludes. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jun/17/china-is-harvesting-organs-from-detainees-uk-tribunal-concludes

Reuters. U.N. urged to investigate organ harvesting in China. https://uk.reuters.com/article/us-china-rights-organ-harvesting/u-n-urged-to-investigate-organ-harvesting-in-china-idUSKBN1W92FL