Not enough corpses

Li Yuanyuan, who died at age 19 from brain cancer, donated her body to Red Cross of Wuhan on April 15, 2006. She was diagnosed with cancer in September 2005 before she went to college. Photo: CFP

She shuffled down the dull white ceramic tile floor to the long dark wooden desk and interrupted a conversation to say, “If you don’t mind, Mr Wang, I still have a few minor questions about the contract.”

Standing in her plain gray jacket at the body donation reception office, 50-something teacher Jiang Huiguang told the Global Times that through donating her body to science, she had hoped to liberate her children from the onerous burden of a traditional funeral: choosing an ashes casket, finding a cemetery plot and making annual offerings.

Teachers and doctors account for the lion's share of donors, said Wang Wei, deputy director of the donor center at Beijing’s Capital Medical University.

“Since 1999, we’ve taken in more than 160 cadavers,” he said. “And in the first four months of this year, we got another eight.”

The shortage of corpses is a constant headache for the center. Even with formaldehyde treatment, each cadaver lasts only for a single semester at most before it becomes unusable, he said.

 “It was supposed to be four students to one body,” said Wang. “But currently 10 or more students are sharing one body.”

Jiang said she is glad to contribute to medical teaching in China, although she admits her daughter at first opposed her decision.

“She didn’t want to sign the form,” Jiang said. “But I feel lucky I finally managed to persuade her in the end.”

Every successful application must contain the consent of a member of the donor’s family: either parent or child. After reading in the papers that the city research centers are short of corpses, Beijinger Gong Zi, a real estate employee, decided to donate on May 8, World Red Cross Day. That was until he discovered he had to obtain his parent’s signature on the application form.

Gong, 42, put his plan on hold until he can talk to his mother and father.

“My neighbors already called me ‘insane’,” said Gong. “So how could I ever hope to address this issue with my parents?”

Parental disapproval is not the only consent issue deterring potential donors. Sometimes sons and daughters pressurize parents not to donate their bodies to science because they believe it is their filial duty to organize a proper funeral.

“I would never allow anyone else to touch my parent’s dead body,” wrote ‘Gaozhixingzhe’ on the Zhidao.baidu.com online forum. The opinion found favor in cyberspace: “I agree with you!” replied “EEZYD”. “Those who consent to their parent’s donation should be cursed!”

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