Surgeons at Zhongshan Hospital in Xuhui District recently harvested five organs for donation from a man who died after suffering a serious brain injury in a traffic accident.
The wife of the donor, a 41-year-old migrant worker surnamed Zhang, approved the procedure after it became clear her husband would not regain consciousness, the hospital said yesterday.
He was pronounced dead on June 8 and the organs — his liver, two kidneys and two corneas — were harvested later the same day.
The posthumous donation was the 12th handled by the hospital since it launched a donor program last year.
Previous donors, who include 10 migrant workers and their children, were aged between 8 and 64, it said.
As well as being given permission by Zhang's widow, hospital officials traveled to the man's hometown in east China's Anhui Province to seek approval from his mother, a procedure required by law.
The five recipients of Zhang's organs are all recovering well after their surgeries, the hospital said.
Since the central government banned the harvesting of organs from executed criminals, the waiting time for people in need of a transplant has grown considerably, said Dr Zhu Tongyu, the hospital's vice president and a qualified surgeon who specializes in kidney transplants.
"The waiting time for most patients is now about 10 years, from five or six years previously," he said.
