Woman has kidney stolen after being conned into having fake cancer operation'

Xu Xiuying, 48, only discovered she had just one kidney during a routine X-ray when she complained of backache

A woman who had her kidney stolen after allegedly being conned into having operations for colon cancer, is still fighting for compensation seven years on.

Xu Xiuying, 48, only discovered she had just one kidney during a routine X-ray when she complained of backache.

But when a neighbour alerted Xu, from the city of Xiangcheng in central China’s Henan province, to a scandal involving a trade in stolen kidneys she looked at the matter again.

She realised that unscrupulous doctors had removed her healthy organ and sold it on the black market.

Xu said: "I thought it was a result of a genetic defect and assumed I had been born like that, so I didn't think any more of it."

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Healthy kidneys can be sold for thousands of pounds illegally and a huge investigation has been launched into the trade in China where the illicit operation took place.

Angry Xu, who has found she had two healthy kidneys in 2006 by looking at medical records held by her doctor, was told that she wrongly had colon cancer and faced major operations.

She was admitted to two hospitals over a period of 12 months, undergoing a seven hour operation in the first and more treatment in the second, and is now unsure when exactly her kidney was stolen.

It was during treatment at a third hospital that she discovered she had a kidney missing from her body, and realised that it could only have happened during treatment at either of two hospitals.

As neither hospital will admit responsibility, she is having to sue both of them for compensation for her lost kidney.

A recent offer of a small amount of compensation by one of the hospitals has been turned down by Xu.

A judicial review confirmed her kidney was removed during surgery and that she was entitled to compensation, but the courts are refusing to rule on who should pay it because of the lack of evidence over which hospital was to blame.