NEW DELHI: As many as 60,590 patients are on the waiting list for a kidney transplant and 18,724 for a liver transplant till December 8, the Centre said in the Rajya Sabha on Tuesday.
In a written reply, Minister of State of Health and Family Welfare, Prataprao Jadhav, said the total number of persons who received organ transplants in the country during the last three years are: 15,968 in 2022; 18,336 in 2023; and 18,811 in 2024.
The minister said the government is implementing the National Organ Transplant Programme. This central sector scheme aims to improve access to life-transforming transplantation for needy citizens of the country by promoting deceased organ donation.
Under the scheme, financial assistance is provided for establishing a network of organ and tissue transplant organisations at the national, regional and state levels, augmenting infrastructure in the government institutions for organ retrieval, transplantation and tissue banking, hiring of transplant coordinators, post-transplant immunosuppressant medicines up to Rs 10,000 per month to poor patients and organ transportation.
Organ transplantation in public sector hospitals is usually done free of cost or at a subsidised rate.
The Centre also provides financial support to eligible beneficiaries under PMJAY (Ayushman Bharat Mission), which covers kidney transplant; Rashtriya Aarogya Nidhi, which covers kidney, liver, heart, lung transplantation, dialysis and post-transplant immunosuppressant medicines; Pradhan Mantri National Dialysis Programme (PMNDP) for providing free dialysis at the district level and PMBJP (Pradhan Mantri Bhartiya Janaushadhi Pariyojana), for providing quality medicines, including post-transplant immunosuppressant medicines at an affordable cost.
Retrieved organs have limited preservation time and must be transplanted as early as possible to keep them functional. Therefore, organ banking is not technically feasible, the Minister clarified.
"However, tissues like cornea, skin, bones and heart valves can be stored in the tissue bank/biomaterial centre," he added.