Wu Mengchao built disease treatment center in Longgang

Wu Mengchao performs surgery in April 2018. China News Service

Wu Mengchao, China's top hepatobiliary surgeon, known as the "Father of Chinese Hepatobiliary Surgery," died at the age of 99 in Shanghai on Saturday.

Wu, an academician with the Chinese Academy of Sciences, established a unique system of liver surgery in China and devoted himself to saving people's lives for nearly eight decades. He continued working well into his 90s, seeing patients and performing operations.

In 2019, Wu signed a cooperation agreement with Shenzhen Hospital of Beijing University of Chinese Medicine in Longgang District to jointly build Wu Mengchao Hepatobiliary Disease Treatment Center.

The center offers patients top treatment services by conducting multi-disciplinary treatment and 5G-supported teleconsultation.

The center is reported to also help cultivate high-level medical talent, specialized in related fields, and promote the ability to use a combined treatment method of traditional Chinese medicine and Western medicine to treat hepatobiliary disease, as well as aid scientific research in Shenzhen and the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area.

The hospital also established the Wu Mengchao Spirit Research Society to amalgamate Wu's academic thoughts to improve the hospital's clinical research and teaching levels while expanding the influence of the Wu Mengchao Hepatobiliary Disease Treatment Center.

Wu once said: "A man's lifetime is limited. Time passes easily if you don't make the best use of it. So I have to seize every second to do more things for the country and people.”

In 2006, Wu won the top prize for 2005's China's top science and technology award. Wu donated 6 million yuan (US$932,500) and submitted, along with another six scientists, a proposal on treatment and prevention of hepatitis B and liver cancer.

Before officially retiring Jan. 14, 2019, Wu was still doing at least three surgeries each week.