Li Li

WOIPFG’s Investigative Report on the Alleged Organ Harvesting of Living Falun Gong Practitioners by Li Li, President of Kunming Ci II, the First Hog, Director of the Organ Transplant Center of the Second Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou Medical University

Feb 13, 2025

Li Li, professor of hepatopancreatobiliary surgery, hospital president, deputy secretary of the Party Committee, Member of the Organ Transplantation Group of the Chinese Medical Association

Personal Profile: He obtained his PhD in Hepatopancreatobiliary Surgery from West China Medical University in 1991. From 1995 to 1998, he was a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Cincinnati School of Medicine in Ohio, USA. He is currently mainly engaged in experimental and clinical research on organ transplantation.

He led and successfully performed the first liver transplant in Yunnan Province in 1999. In 2003 and 2005, he led and successfully performed the first living-related partial liver transplant and the first combined liver-kidney transplant in Yunnan Province. In May 2006, he led and successfully performed the first liver transplant in Kunming City First People's Hospital. In July of the same year, he successfully did the first living-related partial liver transplant between adults in Yunnan Province. He has successfully performed 149 liver transplants (including seventeen living-related partial liver transplants and three combined liver-kidney transplants). He specializes in liver transplantation.[1]

The hospital’s Hepatobiliary Surgery Department is divided into two departments: the First Hepatopancreatobiliary Surgery Department and the Second Hepatopancreatobiliary Surgery Department. They are located in the hospital’s main campus and Ganmei International Hospital respectively and President Li Li is in charge of both[2].

The official website of the hospital stated that the hospital had formulated a discipline construction strategy centered on organ transplantation, and established three national organ transplant centers (liver transplant, kidney transplant, and heart transplant). With this strategy, the hospital will be built into an internationalized hospital, leading in the province and advanced in China, with the transplant specialty as its leading discipline. [3]

The hospital’s Hepatopancreatobiliary Surgery Department is the only state-level liver transplantation research center in Yunnan Province. The team currently has three chief surgeons, eighteen associate chief surgeons, seven attending surgeons, fifteen employees with doctoral degrees, and eighteen graduate students. The center is the only liver transplant center in Yunnan that has obtained the qualification issued by the National Health and Family Planning Commission. The liver transplant team is directly headed by President Li Li.[4]

The hospital has done a large number of liver and kidney transplants. The wait time for organs is usually two to three weeks or even as short as one day. Hospital beds are in tight supply, and added beds are available.

President Li Li and two vice presidents all perform liver transplants. The use of organs from Falun Gong practitioners has been banned since last year.

Investigation Respondent: Ran Jianghua, Vice President of Kunming City First People's Hospital, liver transplantation

Investigation Date: February 27, 2016 (+86-18987162566)

Summary:

We have been doing liver transplants all along.
We performed eight liver transplants in 2016. (No break during the Chinese New Year.)
In Yunnan, a part of (transplant expenses) can be reimbursed as subsistence allowances.
The total cost is 300,000 to 400,000 yuan. The Yunnan Provincial Development and Reform Commission specifically mentioned that the cost of a donor organ is 120,000 yuan.
We applied for government support for patients in Yunnan Province, and the state can subsidize 100,000 yuan.
We obtained more than ten (livers) on Chinese New Year’s Eve, all with type B blood. We not only performed transplants for our own patients, but also transferred patients from Hangzhou to our hospital to do (transplants). Now the patients are doing well.
Even if it is a holiday, we will still do it. It waits for no one!

(Recording 1. Download: MP3; Transcript Download: Addendum 1 )

Investigation Respondent: Zhao Yongheng, Vice President of Kunming City First People's Hospital, liver transplantation

Investigation Date: May 6, 2016 (+86-15877990896)

Summary:

We have been doing liver transplants. Today we performed one liver transplant and two kidney transplants.
Including local hospitals, we have conducted price assessments through the Development and Reform Commission. The total charge for liver acquisition and preservation is 120,000 yuan.

(Recording 2. Download: MP3; Transcript Download: Addendum 2)

Investigation Respondent: A nurse in the kidney transplant ward of the Department of Urology of Kunming City First People's Hospital

Investigation Date: May 7, 2016 (+86-87167390509)

Summary:

I had a call yesterday, yet there were one liver transplant and two kidney transplants, so I was too busy to pick up the phone!
Vice President Ran Jianghua and Zhao Yongheng both do liver transplants.
Those directors in our department. Director Sun, Director Hu, and Director Zhou. Our director is Sun Xun.
There is a doctor in charge of the kidney source, Dr. Ma Yunrui.
Investigator: Doesn’t your hospital harvest (organs) yourself? Some hospitals harvest (organs) themselves. They said that those Falun Gong practitioners detained in prisons can no longer be used now?

Nurse: No. It’s not like it used to be. In the past, kidneys were surely harvested on the spot!

Investigator: You did a lot last year. (Organs from Falun Gong practitioners) could still be used last year, right?

Nurse: It should be the year before last. It didn’t seem to be allowed last year.

(Recording 3. Download: MP3; Transcript Download: Addendum 3)

The number of kidney transplants reached four to five hundred a year. The number of liver transplants reached more than three hundred.

Investigation Respondent: A ward doctor for kidney transplant operations at Kunming City First People’s Hospital

Investigation Date: July 22, 2016 (Phone number: +86+ 871-67390509)

Summary:

1. The directors are not in the department now, they are doing kidney transplants.

2. As many as two hundred cases have been done in the past six months.

3. Wait for about one month.

4. We are the only hospital in Yunnan that’s doing transplants now.

(Recording 4. Download: MP3; Transcript Download: pdf 176)

Investigation Respondent: A nurse in Unit B, 8th floor, Liver Transplant, Kunming City First People's Hospital[5]

Investigation Date: July 20, 2017 (+86+ 87167390507)

Summary: We did more than three hundred liver transplants last year. This year till now we have definitely done more than one hundred liver transplants. We are doing kidney transplants too. So long as we file an application, if there’s a liver source, the liver will be shipped here. President Li Li and Ran Jianghua are both doing it.

(Recording 5. Download: MP3; for complete recording transcript, please see Addendum 94)

Investigation Respondent: A doctor in Unite B, 7th floor, Liver Transplant, the north campus of Kunming City First People's Hospital[6]

Investigation Date: November 10, 2017 (+8687167390509)

We just do transplants with donated organs, not with organs from patients’ family members. Last year, we did more than 200 cases. At the first half of this year, the number of cases dibe already exceeded 200 cases. There could be 400 or 500 cases this year.

(Recording 6. Download: MP3; Transcript Download: pdf addendum)

Investigation Respondent: A nurse in Unite B, 7th floor, Liver Transplant, the north campus of Kunming City First People's Hospital[7]

Investigation Date: June 6, 2018

“We do a lot of kidney transplants!” When being asked whether the hospital performed 400 or 500 cases of this kidney transplantation, the nurse didn’t deny it.

(Recording 7. Download: MP3; Transcript Download: pdf addendum)

Investigation Respondent: Yang Ping, a surgeon in the Hepatobiliary Department in Kunming City First People's Hospital[8]

Investigation Date: March 21, 2019 (+86-871-68261904)

Summary: The wait time shouldn’t be long if it’s type B blood. If you’re lucky, after your call today you go register, you may have an organ tomorrow. This happened a lot!

(Recording 8. Download: MP3; Transcript Download: pdf 030)

Investigation Respondent: A nurse in the Hepatobiliary Department ward in Kunming City First People's Hospital[9]

Investigation Date: October 23, 2019 (+86-871-68261904)

Summary: The ward beds are in short supply. We can add extra beds on the aisle. If you’re lucky, a transplant can be done within two to three weeks.

(Recording 9. Download: MP3; Transcript Download: pdf 137)

3. The number of organ donations is far less than the number of organ transplants in the hospital, and the source of organs is unknown

In December 2016, the head of the Yunnan Provincial Red Cross Organ Donation Office told the investigator: From 2013 to now, there have been 100 to 200 organ donations in the province. Because "many people are influenced by traditional ideas and are unwilling to do this (donate organs)[10]. (Recording 10. Download: MP3, Transcript Download: Addendum)

In June 2018, the duty officer of the Yunnan Provincial Red Cross Human Organ Donation Office told the investigator: In 2017, there were 60 to 70 organ donations in Yunnan Province.[11]

(Recording 11. Download MP3, Transcript Download: pdf Addendum)

References

[1] Good Doctors Online: An introduction to Doctor Li Li

http://www.haodf.com/doctor/DE4r0BCkuHzdugXJc9ZaNDNGERReY.htm

https://web.archive.org/web/20150318035338/http://www.haodf.com/doctor/…

[2] Baidu Baike: Kunming No.1 People's Hospital

https://baike.baidu.com/item/昆明市第一人民医院

[3] Introduction to The First People’s Hospital of Kunming

https://web.archive.org/web/20221220022517/http://www.ymci.cn/view/klmainMb/24/141/view/2064.html

[4] Good Doctors Online: An introduction to the Department of Hepatopancreatobiliary Surgery in Kunming No.1 People's Hospital

http://archive.is/8kkL8

[5] A WOIPFG Investigation Report on the Chinese Communist Party’s Ongoing Crime of Live Organ Harvesting against Falun Dafa Practitioners (IV)