Yang Hongji

WOIPFG's Investigative Report on the Alleged Organ Harvesting of Living Falun Gong Practitioners by Yang Hongji, Director of the Organ Transplantation Center of the Sichuan Provincial People's Hospital

Feb 7, 2025

Summary: Yang Hongji, Director of the Organ Transplant Center at Sichuan Provincial People's Hospital, Chief Surgeon. After returning to China in 2007, he led the establishment of the hospital's Organ Transplant Center and Research Institute. The Organ Transplant Center was founded in March 2007, and in June 2009, the first specialized organ transplant outpatient clinic in Sichuan Province was opened. In 2009, the center ranked 28th among over 160 transplant centers nationwide, and in 2010, it became a training base for specialized organ transplant nurses in Sichuan Province. According to incomplete data, in 2019, the hospital claimed it had performed 197 major organ transplant surgeries, including small intestine, heart, lung, liver, and kidney transplants. Phone investigations revealed practices of forced organ harvesting, emergency liver transplants, and short waiting time at the hospital.

In view of the broader background of the Chinese Communist Party's state crime of organ harvesting from living Falun Gong practitioners, since Sichuan Provincial People's Hospital has been involved in the crime, Yang Hongji, the director of the hospital's Organ Transplantation Center, is a major suspect in the case.

Yang Hongji, Chief Surgeon of Organ Transplant Center of the Sichuan Provincial People’s Hospital. Postgraduate advisor with Luzhou Medical College and Medical School of the University of Electronic Science and Technology, deputy director level member of the Sichuan Provincial Organ Transplantation Committee, member of the Standing Committee of the Provincial Liver Cancer Association, director of the Clinical Organ Transplantation Center of the Sichuan Provincial People's Hospital.

In 1997, he received Master's degree in surgery from Jinan University in Guangzhou; from 1997 to 1999, he studied for a doctor's degree in medicine at the University of Western Ontario, Canada; from 1999 to 2003, he was a postdoctoral fellow in the Laboratory of Transplantation and Immunology at the University of Western Ontario, Canada. From 2003 to 2007, he was an organ transplant surgeon at London Health Medical Center, Canada. Since 2007, he has been deputy director of Sichuan Academy of Medical Sciences/Sichuan Provincial People's Hospital Organ Transplant Institute and director of the Organ Transplant Center. He is an expert in xenotransplantation, engaged in research on HDAF transgenic pigs and GAL-KNOCKOUT pigs for ten years. In 2006, he was an international youth researcher at the WTC transplant annual meeting in the United States, and won many international awards. As chief surgeon he has performed more than 300 cases of liver and kidney transplantation, and has carried out clinical combined pancreas and kidney transplantation, liver and intestine transplantation, living donor liver transplantation and split liver transplantation for children, etc. He performed the first staged hepatectomy (ALPPS) in China.

After returning to China in 2007, he led the efforts to set up the Sichuan Provincial People's Hospital Organ Transplant Center and the Organ Transplant Research Institute. Over a long period of time, he engaged in clinical and research work of transplantation in Canada. In the London Health Sciences Center of the University of Western Ontario, he received clinical and research training in liver, gallbladder, pancreas surgery and multiple organ transplantation (liver, kidney, pancreas and small Intestine). He is a certified doctor of transplantation by the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario and received a certificate issued by ASTS (American Society of Transplant Surgeons).

Sichuan Academy of Medical Sciences, Sichuan Provincial People's Hospital Organ Transplant Center is one of the few clinical transplant centers in China that integrates multiple organ transplants, cell transplants, hepatobiliary and pancreatic surgery, urology and endoscopic surgery, and is approved by the Ministry of Health as a designated hospital for liver transplantation and kidney transplantation. The development of the department focuses on transplantation surgery, based on hepatobiliary and pancreatic surgery and urological surgery, and now carries out clinical liver, kidney, small intestine, pancreas, pancreas-kidney combined transplantation and liver-intestine combined transplantation techniques and conventional hepatobiliary-pancreatic surgery. In June 2009, it opened the first and only organ transplant clinic in the province; in 2009, it ranked 28th among more than 160 transplant centers in China, and in 2010, it became the training base for organ transplant nurses in Sichuan Province.[1] In 2019, Sichuan Provincial People's Hospital performed 197 cases of large organ transplants such as small intestine transplants, heart transplants, lung transplants, liver transplants, and kidney transplants.[2]

The Organ Transplant Center was established in March 2007 and has achieved great development in a short period of time. As of January 2011, it had developed into a clinical surgery center with more than 100 beds, 12 doctors and 27 nurses.[3]

Telephone investigation reveals living-donor organ harvesting, emergency liver transplantation, and short waiting time in the hospital.

Investigation Respondent: Dr. Zhou from the Office of Doctors, Department of Transplantation, Sichuan Provincial People's Hospital

Investigation Date: May 5, 2016 (+86-2887393722)

Summary:

Dr. Zhou: I started (doing transplant surgery) in 2012. At that time, the livers were all harvested in the hospital, and none of them were from the execution ground...

Investigator: So the donors were brought in for their organs, and after the harvesting was done, they were sent away?

Dr. Zhou: After organ harvesting, they would be sent to where they meant to be, the mortuary or the crematorium.[4]

(Recording 1. Download: MP3 ; Transcript Download: pdf 29)

Investigation Respondent: Dr. Yang from the Office of Doctors, Department of Transplantation, Sichuan Provincial People's Hospital

Investigation Date: December 15, 2017 (+86-2887393722)

Summary: If you want to do liver transplantation early, try to talk to our director more; it should not be a problem; generally speaking, not everyone in Sichuan can afford liver transplantation; we always treat liver transplantation as emergencies. For instance, if we’ll do it tonight, then we have to inform the recipient immediately; (the surgery) will cost 350,000 to 400,000 yuan, and that does not include the fee for liver donor, and the liver donation fee does not exceed 100,000 yuan; there are many donors around the Spring Festival, and we are the busiest around major holidays.[5]

(Recording 2. Download: MP3; Transcript Download: pdf 182)

Investigation Respondent: Doctor from the Office of Doctors, Liver Transplant, Sichuan Provincial People's Hospital[6]

Investigation Date: March 30, 2017 (+86-2887393722)

Summary: What we do here is three kidney transplants, that is, three pairs of six kidney transplants. The waiting time is generally relatively fast. We can do hundreds of cases a year.

(Recording 3. Download: MP3, for complete recording transcript please see Addendum 72)

Reference

[1] Brief Introduction of Organ Transplantation Center of Sichuan Provincial People’s Hospital

http://www.samsph.com/zhongdian-content.asp?id=8399

Link to WOIPFG files:

http://www.zhuichaguoji.org/cn/images/nationalcriminalreports/836.pdf

[2] https://archive.vn/pLYYY

[3] Brief Introduction of Organ Transplantation Center of Sichuan Provincial People’s Hospital

http://www.samsph.com/qgyzzx_intro/409/1/

Link to WOIPFG files:

http://www.zhuichaguoji.org/sites/default/files/report/2016/64700_06420…

[4] WOIPFG Report on Investigation of CCP’s Ongoing Organ Harvesting of Living Falun Gong Practitioners (II)