Chapter 959: People’s Hospital

Three days quickly passed.

The two teams led by Lu Chuan have been investigating in the USA for three days.

With some clues already grasped by Li Donglin earlier, Lu Chuan and his team quickly focused their work here.

They have conducted a rough statistical analysis of the relevant population.

At the same time, they conducted a detailed investigation into the reliance on abnormal medical data from the Health Commission.

Based on the current investigation results, some situations can already be confirmed.

Lu Chuan and his team temporarily rented a factory in the USA as their office location.

The factory is relatively remote, with no coverings around, making it relatively safe.

Next to the simple office desk, Lu Chuan and the team are studying the current situation they have obtained.

Chen Jiang is reporting some of his investigation results.

"In the past two days, I arranged a team to conduct interviews and investigations at Ping’an County People’s Hospital."

According to the data provided by Li Donglin, the Health Commission’s data indicates that Ping’an County People’s Hospital has the highest abnormal data amount among all the data.

"Ping’an County People’s Hospital, being a county-level hospital, doesn’t have specialized departments like a tertiary hospital; kidney disease is not separated into its own department."

The hospital doesn’t really have a cardiology or cardiovascular surgery department; basically, there are two main departments with more people: one is internal medicine, and the other is surgery.

Besides these two, there are the male department and the gynecology department.

"We focused our investigation on the internal medicine department."

Chen Jiang had done a lot of preparation before conducting a comprehensive review of the hospital.

Using existing information, Chen Jiang and his team first found a patient who had a missing kidney.

Lu Chuan had seen this person, and with his experience, Lu Chuan immediately recognized the scar on the left side of the body after just a glance.

The incision made for a living kidney extraction is different from that for a diseased kidney removal.

From a medical incision perspective, the wound from a diseased kidney removal is usually small.

Since the kidney needs to be removed anyway, there’s no need for special protection after removal; it just needs to be taken out.

However, for a living kidney extraction, the incision is a long curved line because it is necessary to ensure that the kidney is without any blemish or damage during removal, requiring a sufficiently large incision.

But the person insists their kidney was removed due to disease.

Chen Jiang and his team did not press too hard, fearing it may alert the person, simply saying they were looking for some ways themselves.

But since they weren’t familiar with the situation and were quite worried, they offered the person 500 yuan and posed as his relative to accompany him to the hospital for a follow-up visit.

Seeing the 500 yuan offered, the person agreed.

"Based on the current information, we can confirm that this hospital is indeed the source, one of the origins of living kidney extraction."

When Chen Jiang sent people to investigate, they contacted the person whose kidney had been extracted and the treating doctor.

They expressed their desire to make money.

"However, the other party didn’t immediately agree, instead stating that some checks were needed."

"I suspect they are searching for a match."

It’s not that every extracted kidney can be used by other patients, as rejection reactions are involved, requiring compatibility testing for the kidneys.

In addition to the hospital’s investigation results, Lu Chuan also conducted interviews personally and made significant progress.

According to the current known people from whom living kidneys were extracted, Lu Chuan has counted about 19 individuals.

These people all live in remote rural areas under harsh living conditions.

Normally, when asked, these individuals claim that they underwent kidney removal surgeries due to illness, but Lu Chuan, using various means, learned information from many of them.

These people sold their kidneys for money as they were financially strained.

Coincidentally, Lu Chuan was not short of money.

This money came from Lu Chuan’s own pocket; there was no possibility of reimbursement. But in order to solve the case, Lu Chuan was not much concerned.

"It is now certain that there is a gray industry chain involving living kidney removal and sale in the USA."

Of the 19 individuals, Lu Chuan met and interacted with 7 of them, who, after receiving some money, admitted that they didn’t have kidney disease and simply sold their kidneys.

"One kidney for 100,000 yuan."

This is the result of three days of investigation by Lu Chuan’s team.

Normally, the cost of a regular kidney transplant is about 300,000 yuan, including surgical costs, examination fees, and the most important part, compensation for kidney donors.

From a physiological necessity perspective, retaining one of the two kidneys is sufficient to meet the body’s blood filtration needs, allowing for possible kidney donation among relatives.

However, a regular hospital doesn’t allow kidney trading; the source of organs must not be for profit purposes.

According to regulations, kidneys can be donated, but the donor must either be a relative or plan to donate their body posthumously as the recipient is in critical condition.

For the latter, recipients can offer compensation based on their financial condition and the donor’s family’s needs, typically between 200,000 and 300,000 yuan.

But here in the USA, it has been turned into a business.

Chen Jiang nodded; "The internal medicine doctors conduct comprehensive checks on recipients to match kidney donors in this way."

"The surgical team handles the operation."

"But the specific surgery location is not at the county hospital."

This is a clue obtained through Lu Chuan’s investigation.

Based on the current information gathered around the targeted population, after matching demands are found, surgeries are performed.

"According to what they said, they underwent relevant examinations at the hospital, then left the hospital in an ambulance, which drove for about 30 minutes before they got off."

"But this is just an estimated time as they were anesthetized while in the ambulance, so they don’t know where they got off or where the surgery was performed, only waking up after being transported back to the county hospital ward."

This gray industry chain must have its own underground surgery room.

But Lu Chuan and his team have yet to discover where this surgery room is located or who the participants in the surgery are, nor is the role of the hospital’s internal medicine and surgical doctors known yet.