Ten desperately ill patients say they have lost their last chance to live after the health authority shut a clinic they had set up for kidney dialysis in suburban Beijing.
They said they knew the clinic was illegal, but they relied on it for their survival, The Beijing News reported.
They are all suffering from uremia, a disease associated with kidney failure, in which urea and other waste products, which are normally excreted into the urine, are retained in the blood.
Patients need regular blood purification through dialysis to survive or undergo a kidney transplant, which is costly and dependent on the availability of kidneys.
Beijing health officials shut the clinic on Monday after learning about it in a report on Friday's The Beijing News, the newspaper said.
The original report was intended to draw public attention to and find help for the patients.
The 10 patients, from all over the country, received dialysis treatment at the clinic in Baimiao Village in Beijing's Tongzhou District. It uses second-hand equipment and patients were charged 100 yuan (US$14.63) per treatment, compared with between 300 and 500 yuan at licensed hospitals.
The patients signed an agreement that they would accept any side effects, even death, because they wanted to live.
Beijing health officials said the health bureau would examine the 10 patients and offer them one or two free dialysis sessions.
The officials suggested the patients go for dialysis at licensed medical facilities. But the patients have declined the offer.
"The offer of one or two dialysis sessions is meaningless as we need lifelong treatment if we are to survive," Chen Bingzhi, one of the patients, said.
"It costs about 6,000 yuan a month to have the treatment at a licensed hospital. But the yearly income in my hometown is a mere 10,000 yuan," said Li Lidan, 23.
The native of Changzhi County in north China's Shanxi Province had had a dialysis session once every five days in a hospital before coming to the clinic. She had felt happy with the clinic because she could afford the treatment.
"Without regular dialysis, we can't survive more than half a month," wrote Wang Xinyang, 28, in his diary.
Wang, a Beijing native, has relied on the treatment for seven years.
He was diagnosed with uremia in 2002.
He set up the clinic in 2004 after buying three sets of dialysis machines with another two uremia sufferers
(Shanghai Daily March 31, 2009)