The Japanese Association for Acute Medicine, a national group of medical experts, has publicized a list of 23 medical facilities that it said are appropriate hospitals to remove organs from brain-dead donors for transplants based on newly enacted legislation.
Since the organ transplant law was enacted in June, the association, headed by Nihon Medical School Hospital President Toshifumi Otsuka, has conducted studies to list facilities.
The list includes acute treatment centers at Sapporo Medical College, Saitama Medical College, Nihon Medical School Hospital, Keio University, Osaka University, Kagawa Medical School, Yamaguchi University and Okinawa Prefectural Chubu Hospital.
The law, which will go into effect Oct. 16, cleared the Diet after much controversy over how to define human death.
The association argued that appropriate and reliable treatment and a brain-death diagnosis are required before organs can be removed from such patients. It chose 23 out of 33 facilities that were already selected as facilities where patients can receive high-level acute medical treatment.
The association called on hospitals to have a medical ethics committee and a brain-death diagnosis committee to conduct transplants from brain-dead donors. All of the 23 facilities meet or will meet such conditions before October, the association said.
"The association selected the facilities with an eye to risk-avoidance,"said Shuji Shimazaki, chairman of the association and a professor at Kyorin University.
The Health and Welfare Ministry is also expected to add university-affiliated hospitals to the list. Those facilities are expected to remove organs from brain-dead donors based on the law.