The change in the law on organ donations has made it more difficult to find organs. The
need for organs donors in the country far exceeds the number of donors. Every year about 2.2
Lakh new patients of End Stage Renal Disease (ESRD) get added in India resulting in
additional demand for 3.4 Crore dialysis every year. With approximately 4950 dialysis
centres, largely in the private sector in India, the supply is less than demand met with existing
infrastructure. Since every Dialysis has an additional expenditure tag of about Rs.2000, it
results in a monthly expenditure for patients to the tune of Rs.3-4 Lakhs annually.
Employee
Besides, most families have to undertake frequent trips, and often over long distances to
access dialysis services incurring heavy travel costs and loss of wages for the patient and
family members accompanying the patient. This therefore leads to financial catastrophe for
practically all families with such patients. With substantial gain in quality of life and
extension of progression free survival for patients, families continue to stretch financially to
make large out of pocket spends. It has been felt that both in terms of provision of this
important life saving procedure and also for reducing impoverishment on account of out of
pocket expenditure for patients, a Dialysis program is required.
The records in the Indian Transplant Registry reported that between 1971 and 2015, a total of
21,395 kidneys were transplanted in India, out of which a mere number of 783 kidneys
belonged to deceased or cadaver donors. It is also due to the lack of knowledge of the process
and apprehension among Indian families that leads to the decreasing number of deceased
donors in the country.
Purnanad B Sanket patient says “At the age of 9 I had to undergo dialysis. And Recently
when I had my dialysis in 2010, i had to pay around 2000 rupees per session. I had to wait
only for 2 months, as my mother donated the kidney but after Transplantation of Human Organs act 2011 people need to wait for 4-5 years.”
Regardless of whether one discovers benefactor one can’t transplant it as the contributor should be blood relative. Due to this holding up time has expanded.
