The shortage in the blood supply has been plaguing hospitals in some 50 large and medium-sized cities nationwide for the past three months, Iqilu.com reported.

Amid the critical shortage of blood, some hospitals even had to cut surgeries by 80 percent, leading many desperate patients in need of blood transfusions to resort to the black market.

Reporters from Shandong Network Radio-Television Station found that the blood bank in Jiangsu Province's Suzhou City was suffering platelet shortage. The supply can only be used in matters of life and death. Patients in The First Affiliated Hospital of Soochow University have to ask relatives and friends to donate blood if they want to receive operations quickly.

However, many patients at the hospital are not Suzhou locals and do not have many social connections there. Even for those living in the city, it can be embarrassing to ask relatives and friends to donate blood over and over again. In such context situation, blood dealers have found opportunities.

A blood dealer calling himself Laozhou told reporters that 200ml of whole blood would cost about 1,000 yuan (US$154), while two units of platelets would cost 1,200 yuan(US$185), both four or five times the prices in the hospital.

Groups of blood dealers have been hanging around the blood bank for quite some time. Each group is well organized and has claimed their spheres of influence by force.

Xiaosu is a "little brother" (a slang word for people who run errands) of a blood trading group, and has four bosses who are from a village in Anhui Province. They got their sphere of influence after a bloody fight with another group last year.

The bosses usually focus on negotiating with blood buyers, while he and several other "little brothers" are responsible for contacting blood sellers and arranging donations, Xiaosu said. They will get a blood donation certificate from the seller and give it to the buyer who can get the same amount of blood from hospital.

Blood traders pay the seller 400 yuan (US$61) for two units of platelets, but charge the buyer 1,200 yuan (US$185). In a single day, they can make more than 20 transactions like this. "Little brothers" can earn between 100,000 and 200,000 yuan (US$15,422-30,845) each year, and their bosses can make more than one million yuan (US$154,298), Xiaosu said.

Blood center's working staff said they know about the situation but can do nothing because they are not given law enforcement power.

China's law on blood donation encourages patients' family members, relatives, friends and colleagues to donate blood for mutual aid, but says it is illegal to make arrangements for another person to sell his or her blood for a patient's use.

The law also stipulates that doctors should define the relations between the donors and patients. But in reality, neither doctors nor blood banks follow it seriously.

"All you have to do is to tell them that the donor is your colleague or friend," Xiaosu said.

Taking advantage of the lack of oversight, blood dealers are making a killing from this "bloody" trade.

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