Old photo from China misrepresented as doctors honouring teenage organ donor
- Published on November 10, 2025 at 10:06
- 3 min read
- By Hailey JO, AFP South Korea
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A nearly decade-old photo of medical workers in China honouring a fellow doctor who donated his organs has resurfaced in posts falsely claiming it shows a tribute to a teenage organ donor. The image has circulated in multiple news reports since 2016 about medics showing their respects to a doctor who fell ill while volunteering and later died.
"This photo shows medical staff paying tribute to a 17-year-old female organ donor who saved the lives of many," reads Korean-language text superimposed on an image shared on Facebook on November 5, 2025.
The image appears to show medical workers bowing to a deceased person, covered with green cloth, on a hospital bed.
Its caption adds: "At just 17, she left the world far too soon but her death gave others the chance to live on. Her heart, liver, kidneys, and lungs were donated to patients waiting for transplants."
"The photograph captured that moment."
The moment resembles "Honor Walks", where hospital staff, family members and sometimes other patients will line the hospital hallway in silence as the organ donor is transported to surgery (archived link).
"Honor Walks have become an increasingly popular way for hospitals to honor donors and families at the time of organ donation," says US-based organ donation organisation LifeSource.
The same image also circulated in similar Instagram and Reddit posts, as well as on South Korean blogging platforms Naver Blog and Tistory.
"She was at such a beautiful, flower-like age. May she rest in peace," read a comment on one of the posts.
Another said: "God bless her. One of earth’s angels and now a heavenly one."
While the image does show an organ donor, it in fact shows healthcare workers paying respect to a fellow doctor who donated his organs after passing away in 2016.
A reverse image search on Google led to the same photo in a report published by Chinese state-run news outlet China Global Television Network (CGTN) on September 30, 2016 (archived link).
According to the report, Zhao Ju, a 41-year-old doctor from the Chinese province of Anhui, was diagnosed with a brain aneurysm while volunteering in the Tibet Autonomous Region and later passed away. Following his wishes, Zhao's family donated his kidneys, liver and corneas.
"Fellow doctors were pictured paying their respects to Zhao with deep bows at a hospital in Hefei City, the capital of Anhui Province," CGTN reported.
The broadcaster also posted the same photo on Facebook on the next day (archived link).
The same photo -- attributed to Chinese photo agency Visual China Group, or VCG -- appears in a March 2018 article by another Chinese outlet, Sixth Tone, about an organ donation trend in the country (archived here and here).
Its caption says: "Doctors and nurses pay their respects to an organ donor after surgery to remove the patient's usable organs at a hospital in Hefei, Anhui province, Sept. 29, 2016."
Further keyword searches led to a similar photo taken from a different angle on the China News Service (CNS) news agency's Chinese and English websites, published on September 30, 2016 (archived here and here).
CNS reported Zhao suffered "headache and dizziness a few days after arriving in Shannan and was later found to have a ruptured aneurysm in his head", adding he died on September 22, 2016.
AFP has previously debunked other false claims related to organ donation.
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