ZHAN WENJING, a teenage girl suffering from leukemia, has said she wants to give up her treatment and offer her organs to others.

The girl, 16, said her family is too poor to afford the medical fees of up to 300,000 yuan (US$38,400), and she would rather donate her kidneys and corneas.

"I want to live on, but my family is too poor. I don't want to burden my parents with huge medical fees," she said.

Zhan lived with her grandfather in a village in Huanggang, Central China's Hubei Province when her parents decided to come to Shenzhen to work two years ago to support their family of five, including the sick grandfather in his 70s and two children at school. Zhan's brother is studying at a technical school near their hometown. In Shenzhen, the couple earns around 1,000 yuan a month, far from enough to make ends meet.

Back home, the girl cooked for her grandfather, helped him bathe, washed his clothes, and sold fruit at weekends to earn some extra money.

"Wenjing helped us carry bricks when we built a new house in 2000. Even though she was only 10, she never complained about working early in the morning," her mother said.

In February this year, when her brother asked for 4,000 yuan in tuition fees, which was beyond the family's means, Zhan decided to drop out of school and join her parents in Shenzhen.

"I can work to help support my brother and grandpa," she said.

But Zhan could not find a job because she is too young. On April 25, the girl was sent to a clinic after feeling dizzy. The second day, she began to run a fever at 39 degrees Celsius.

Doctors at a Bao'an hospital diagnosed leukemia and recommended she be transferred to a larger hospital for further treatment. During the May Day holiday, she was transferred to the Beijing University Shenzhen Hospital.

To help treat their daughter, Zhan's parents quit their jobs to take care of her and borrowed money from relatives and friends.

But on May 6, the girl told her mother that she wanted to give up.

"I don't want to burden you with huge debts. I know we cannot afford it," she said in tears.

"I have a good friend whose mother died last year of kidney failure. I also learnt from TV that people can donate corneas to help the blind. I want to donate mine when I die," she said.

So far, her parents' colleagues and a man from their hometown have donated more than 8,000 yuan for her treatment.

Editor: Wing