This is a training base for graduate students of Southern Medical University, the Third Military Medical University in Chongqing, the Second Military Medical University in Shanghai, and other schools. It has a number of PLA medical centers, clinical bases, research institutes, and key specialties under the Guangzhou Military Command. The hospital has over 200 specialists and professors with associate senior titles or above, and over 200 staff with PhD and graduate degrees in medicine. It has more than 1,500 beds.510
It is known to have strong organ transplant capabilities. It serves as the organ transplant center for Guangzhou Military Command and is the director unit of the academic commission of organ transplantation under the Guangzhou Military Command. It also hosts the organ transplantation branch of the Guangxi Medical Association. It conducted its first kidney transplant in 1986 and the first pancreas-kidney transplant in Guangdong and Guangxi provinces in 2000.
A PLA Kidney Transplant and Dialysis Center was established in its nephrology department. Its kidney transplantation capabilities are claimed to be at an advanced level in the PLA and at a leading level in the Guangzhou Military Command and the Guangxi region. Its staff includes 2 PhD advisors, 4 master’s advisors, 5 chief surgeons, 3 associate chief surgeons, and 4 attending physicians. It has 150 beds.511 (Currently this webpage is not accessible, however, we have on record its archive page.)
The center performed 8 transplant surgeries on December 30, 2012 alone, including heart, lung, kidney, liver, corneal, and islet cell transplants. Its organ transplant technology is known to be at a leading standard in the nation.512 In March 2016, the hospital was recruiting two organ transplant liaisons.513
Sui Weiguo, the center’s director, adopted various blood purification methods to remove antibodies in highly sensitive kidney transplant patients. This has significantly improved the transplant success rate. He is the chairman of the Guangzhou Military Command Transplantation Professional Committee, chairman of the Guangxi Medical Association Transplantation Subcommittee, and a board member of the PLA Organ Transplantation Association.514
The center’s archived website shows that its bed and medical personnel count has not been updated since 2007, after the organ harvesting crimes were exposed in 2006. It still claims to perform over 150 kidney transplants per year since 2000. Based on the figure of 150 beds, each bed would in that case be used by only one patient every year. For such a small number of reported transplants, there would be no need for more than ten beds and one chief surgeon, let alone a whole building.
The hospital is not qualified to conduct heart transplants, and its website does not mention the subject. However, Sui Weiguo and other transplantation experts published a paper about acute rejection of heart transplants, based on a study of a group of 157 of his heart transplant patients. Therefore, Sui Weiguo, the director of the kidney transplant center, has performed heart transplants as well.515
Moreover, Pan Yuchen from PLA No. 181 Hospital and other experts from the cardiothoracic surgery department of the People’s Hospital of Guangxi, conducted experiments and clinical research in heart transplantation using a partially continuous beating technique. The technique is advanced internationally and has been applied in other hospitals extensively.516
The hepatobiliary surgery department’s archived website shows that it has had 50 beds since 2011 and performed over 30 liver transplants in total. However, the number was deleted in 2013.517 The equivalent annual volume of transplants would not meet even the Ministry of Health’s minimum requirement for transplant certification.
In the late 1990s, this hospital and the PLA General Hospital in Beijing began sharing medical resources and set up remote online consultations. In early 2005, it spent 250,000 RMB to build a remote medical network through military satellites, connecting over 200 military hospitals and more than 1,000 experts. This remote treatment model provides patients with a platform for accessing high-end medical resources.518