Chenzhou First People’s Hospital was founded in 1907. It is now affiliated with Southern Medical University and a few other universities. It has 2,823 open beds, 81 clinical departments, and 6 medical centers. Currently it has 3,118 employees, including 492 with intermediate or senior professional titles, 35 master’s advisors, one doctoral advisor, 38 professionals with PhDs in medicine, and 379 with master’s degrees in medicine.⁷⁹⁸

The hospital has successfully performed heart, liver, kidney, bone marrow, and corneal transplants.⁷⁹⁹ Its kidney transplant ranks among the top in Hunan Province. Its Hepatobiliary Surgery Department has performed many liver transplants.⁸⁰⁰ The hospital’s heart transplantation is at an advanced level in the province.⁸⁰¹

Since the harvesting of organs from living Falun Gong practitioners was exposed in 2006, this hospital’s organ transplant information was also disclosed overseas. It has since removed nearly all information about organ transplants from its website.

Below is sporadic information about the hospital remaining on various websites:

Chen Shanqun, head of the Urologic Surgery Department, was previously head of the hospital’s Transplant Blood Purification Center. He is a member of the Hunan Province Organ Transplant Professional Committee. In 2004, he was named the academic lead of Chenzhou City in organ transplantation and awarded second prize of the Chenzhou City Science and Technology Progress Award.⁸⁰²

In the afternoon of September 1, 2015, the 2015 Hunan Directors of Organ Transplantation Forum was held at Chenzhou First People’s Hospital. The forum was organized by the Hunan Province Medical Association’s Organ Transplant Professional Committee and the First People’s Hospital of Chenzhou City. Directors of organ transplantation from nine hospitals in the province all participated.⁸⁰³ This reflects the influence the Chenzhou First People’s Hospital among the local organ transplantation community.

The hospital’s ophthalmology research project on “cryopreserved allogeneic corneal transplant treatment

and corneal perforation clinical research” was awarded a municipal second prize, reflecting the maturity of its corneal transplantation capabilities.⁸⁰⁴

A reader from mainland China revealed in a letter to Minghui.org, “One day in late-April 2004, I took a relative to the Opthalmology [sic] Division at the No.1 People’s Hospital in Binzhou City. When the doctor checked his eyes, he said: ‘You need a cornea transplant.’ My relative asked: ‘How much for the operation?’ The doctor said: ‘It will cost 7,000 yuan.’ He added: ‘You are really lucky, because we will have a cornea tomorrow.’ I asked: ‘Is it from a dead person, or someone else?’ He quickly replied to me: ‘It’s good anyway.’” ⁸⁰⁵