Between 6,000 and 9,000 transplants are done in China each year, a fraction of the roughly 300,000 needed, according to government data. A nationwide organ donation system was launched by China’s government in February 2013, before which organs were donated through local programmes or arranged case by case. In 2014, about 1,700 people contributed organs through the new system resulting in an organ donation rate of 1.2per million populations. This has been largely through the efforts of transplant coordinators.

The job of transplant coordinators is particularly hard because many Chinese believe that an intact body is needed in the afterlife, and coordinators usually face a protracted struggle with extended families when it comes to organ donation. “The body, hair and skin are received from the parents and one dares not harm them,” says one Confucian teaching. In addition, prior consent by the donor doesn’t constitute legal permission in China. In practice, the system requires written consent from all living members of the immediate family, including parents, adult children and spouses, according to Gao Xinpu, deputy director of the medical affairs department at the China Organ Donation Management Center, which helps train coordinators and operates under the Red Cross Society of China. The Red Cross donation management centre has certified 547 coordinators across the country, and is training thousands more.