【Media Interview】United Daily News｜Military General Hospital Organ Donation Case and Increasing Overseas Transplants: Lee Po-Chang Warns That Government Neglect of Organ Donation Could Draw International Scrutiny
Military General Hospital Organ Donation Case and Increasing Overseas Transplants: Lee Po-Chang Warns That Government Neglect of Organ Donation Could Draw International Scrutiny
August 21, 2026, 16:00
United Daily News／Reporter Lin Tsung-en／Taipei Real-Time Report
Several physicians at Tri-Service General Hospital (TSGH) have been indicted by prosecutors in connection with an organ donation controversy. The patient involved in the case was admitted to the hospital after an accidental fall and subsequently died of sepsis. The hospital’s transplant team classified the cause of death as death from natural disease and proceeded with corneal donation without first notifying prosecutors for a forensic examination.
Lee Po-Chang, former Chairman of the Organ Donation and Transplantation Center and Director of the Health and Welfare Policy Research Center at Taipei Medical University, pointed out that even when a patient who is admitted following an accident subsequently dies from complications, the underlying cause of death should still be classified as an accidental death. He said the case highlights inadequate education and training regarding organ donation. In addition, the growing number of people traveling overseas for organ transplants underscores the government’s insufficient attention to organ donation and transplantation, which could potentially draw scrutiny from international human rights organizations.
According to information obtained, the patient in the TSGH transplant case was admitted after falling and later died of sepsis during hospitalization. The physician recorded the cause of death as death from disease and initiated the organ transplantation process, with the patient’s corneas subsequently transplanted to recipients. The issue came to light only when the family later applied for insurance compensation and discovered that the cause of death had been recorded as disease-related rather than accidental.
Lee Po-Chang stated that because the patient had been admitted following an accident, the cause of death should not have been recorded as death from disease under the applicable regulations. Furthermore, because only the corneas were being donated, there should have been no need to rush the procedure. Even if prosecutors had first conducted a forensic examination, the corneas could still have been recovered and transplanted after the cause of death had been confirmed while the body remained in the morgue.
Lee emphasized that physicians cannot disregard legal requirements when determining a patient’s cause of death. The cause must be traced back to the original event. For example, if a patient is hospitalized following a traffic accident, suffers massive blood loss, and ultimately dies from shock, the death would not be classified as death from disease but as an accidental death, requiring notification to prosecutors for a forensic examination.
Physicians involved in organ transplantation must have a clear understanding of the entire process and ensure that every stage is conducted in accordance with applicable laws and regulations. However, many hospital transplant teams currently lack experienced senior leadership. Combined with insufficient government attention to organ transplantation and inadequate physician training, reliance solely on individual experience may result in incomplete procedures.
Transplantation is not necessarily a highly visible specialty within the broader medical field, and even hospital presidents may not be fully familiar with the procedures governing organ donation. Lee noted that when transplant physicians fail to follow prescribed procedures, even an inadvertent oversight may lead to questions after transplantation about whether the process was legally compliant. Such situations can seriously damage a hospital’s reputation and undermine the development of transplantation in Taiwan.
Taiwan does have a comprehensive transplantation system, with clear principles governing different types of organ donation, including deaths from disease, non-disease-related deaths, brain death, and circulatory death. Nevertheless, the public still frequently perceives that “organ transplantation in Taiwan is chaotic and lacks a proper system.”
Lee emphasized that the TSGH transplantation case is not merely a hospital issue—it is a national issue. The government should attach greater importance to organ transplantation. Recently, numerous cases of people traveling overseas to undergo transplantation have attracted media attention. These individuals are not necessarily unaware of the risks associated with overseas transplantation; rather, they may have chosen to seek treatment abroad because they were unable to receive donated organs in Taiwan.
Lee criticized what he described as the government’s near-tacit acceptance of such cases and called for more proactive promotion of organ transplantation and improvements to the system so that transplantation can be carried out more effectively in clinical settings.
Otherwise, he warned, Taiwan could potentially attract the attention of international human rights organizations and international transplantation societies.
Original source: https://udn.com/news/story/7266/9706122
