Worker wakes up without left kidney

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A man who said he woke up in a local hotel to find his left kidney had been removed is now recovering in Machong People's Hospital in the southern Pearl River Delta city.

"The man, surnamed Shu, is in stable condition, and he is recovering after treatment," a doctor from the hospital, who declined to be named, told China Daily on Monday.

The doctor would not give additional details about the 28-year-old migrant worker from Southwest China’s Chongqing municipality.

According to the Guangzhou-based Nanfang Daily, Shu arrived at Machong People's Hospital by taxi on the night of Feb 23.

He said he had woken up on Thursday in a small hotel and felt a stomachache, and he found 20,000 yuan ($3,200) in his pockets.

He then took a taxi by himself to the hospital to see doctors after finding a wound in his stomach. Doctors were shocked to discover that Shu's kidney had been removed and they immediately notified the police.

Shu said he had lost his memory for four days and he did not know what had happened to him.

"I arrived in Dongguan looking for job opportunities on Feb 13, and I only remembered I was in Dongguan's Wanjiang district on Feb 19," Shu's doctors quoted him as saying.

The doctors said his stomach wound had been stitched up for several days when he arrived at the hospital, and they concluded his kidney had been removed by professional medical workers.

Shu did not want to answer questions from police officers and doctors, the report said.

He is now in an isolation ward on the fifth floor of the hospital, with several security guards defending the entrance to his room.

"Only those approved by authorities can enter to see Shu," a security guard told China Daily on Monday afternoon. The local health department has established a special task force of experienced doctors and experts to help treat Shu and investigate how his kidney was removed.

Police in Dongguan are investigating the case, a police officer from Dongguan public security bureau said.

He said the case would be made public when the investigation has come to an end.

The case has raised great concern from home and abroad after local media reported it late last week.

Insiders said Shu might have sold his left kidney after failing to find a job in the city.

Doctors said they had contacted Shu's parents in Chongqing, and his father said he would rush to Dongguan to see his son, Nanfang Daily reported.

"My son just told me he wanted to leave home for Guangdong to seek job opportunities, but he has never said or hinted that he wanted to sell his kidney," the newspaper quoted his father assaying.

（中国日报网英语点津 Helen 编辑）

About the broadcaster:

Emily Cheng is an editor at China Daily. She was born in Sydney, Australia and graduated from the University of Sydney with a degree in Media, English Literature and Politics. She has worked in the media industry since starting university and this is the third time she has settled abroad - she interned with a magazine in Hong Kong 2007 and studied at the University of Leeds in 2009.