Indicating a positive trend, albeit at a slow pace, while over 80 per cent of the 36,640 transplants between 1995 and 2021 were performed on men, the share of women receiving transplants has steadily increased since 2019.
Government data shows that the proportion of female recipients rose from 27.6 per cent in 2019 to nearly 30 per cent in 2022, reflecting a promising shift to inclusivity and gender equity in healthcare access.
The data shared by Minister of State for Health S P Singh Baghel in response to a Lok Sabha inquiry recently reveals that 29,695 transplants were conducted on men compared to 6,945 on women, translating to a ratio of about 4:1.
“However, the share of women receiving transplants increased from 27.6 per cent in 2019 to nearly 30 per cent in 2022,” said the Minister.
He was replying to a query posed by YSR Congress Party MP Kuruva Gorantla Madhav who had asked if the government has taken cognisance of the fact that between 1995 and 2021, four out of five organ recipients have been men in the country and what are the steps taken to address the issue.
In his response, Baghel said the government has implemented the National Organ Transplant Programme under which steps have been taken to raise awareness on organ donation.
In order to narrow down the trend of gender disparity in organ transplants, the Ministry of Health has been conducting regular awareness and sensitisation sessions, he said.
However, it is not easy owing to several socio-cultural factors in the patriarchal societies in countries like India that keep women at a disadvantage when it comes to organ donations.
In fact, Chennai-based urologist Dr Jaison Philips on X (formerly Twitter) posted that “When a woman is a kidney recipient, the person who donates is usually a sister, mother or daughter. Most women are ready to offer their kidneys to their ailing husbands to save their lives, but the converse seldom happens. Scratch the veneer of democracy and modernity in India and you will find that we are still a feudal, casteist, misogynistic, and patriarchal community.”
As many felt that much is to do with the social conditioning where women are considered as a symbol of sacrifice around whose the welfare of the entire family depends.
Dr Sunil Shroff, urologist and managing trustee of MOHAN Foundation, an NGO that promotes and facilitates organ donation talked about a recent report published by the Foundation, echoing the Government’s data.
It stated that 80 per cent of live organ donors in India are women, while they constitute only 18.9 per cent of organ recipients. The report is based on a research paper published in the Experimental and Clinical Transplantation Journal in 2021. According to their findings, for every woman who underwent an organ transplant between 1995 and 2021, four men went through the same procedure. That is, of the 36,640 donations during this period, only 6,945 (18.9%) were women recipients.
To ensure that the burden of organ donations does not fall unfairly on women, transplant surgeons suggest cadaver transplants cadaver transplants ie on organs harvested from dead bodies instead of live transplants.