According to the Ministry of Health of People's Republic of China, every year 1.5 million patients are in need of organ transplants, but only about 10,000 of them get the surgery, due to a lack of organ sources, CCTV reported.

Most of the patients have a long wait for the proper organ sources. Lin Yongran, a middle-aged cirrhosis patient in Guangzhou, Guangdong province, has been waiting for six years.

Wang Changxi, a doctor at The First Affiliated Hospital, Sun Yat-sen University, said that there are more and more patients who need organ transplants but there are fewer and fewer sources.

It is very hard for people and their family members to decide to donate their organs. Feng Xiuyuan, a mother of a patient who lay between life and death, said the donation surgery seemed like torture.

Zhao Lizhen, head of the Red Cross Society of China Shenzhen Branch, said traditional beliefs about a man's body make people balks at donations and some donators cannot be understood by their family members.

Ma Fuming decided to donate his body when he learned he had cancer, and his wife, Chen Jiahua, supported his idea after he passed away, but their other family members never understood them.