4,000 and growing: List of people awaiting organ donation in Mumbai gets longer

Transplantation Coordination Centre (ZTCC), the organisation responsible for coordinating organ transplantation in Mumbai.

Striking an imbalance in demand and supply, the city with a population of two crore records only 50 cadaver donors — deceased individuals whose organs and tissues are donated. In 2019, the city recorded 79 donors, which dropped to 30 in 2020 and 33 in 2021 amid the Covid pandemic. It increased to 47 in 2022. In total, since Mumbai’s cadaver organ donation programme began in 1997, the city has documented a total of 632 cadaver donations.

To put this in a perspective, a single cadaver donor can rescue as many as eight lives. Two patients will benefit from kidney donation, while a liver can be divided to benefit two others. The contribution of two lungs can save two patients, while a pancreas and heart donation can save two lives.

The number of people waiting for organ donation in the state is almost three times higher than in Mumbai with doctors highlighting two primary causes — lack of awareness and complacency within public hospitals.
“We have come a long way fighting superstitious beliefs but people still hesitate. There is a need to inculcate the awareness from childhood through education,” said Dr Bharat Shah, secretary of ZTCC.

Over 95 per cent of organ transplants occur in expensive private hospitals, accessible only to the wealthy. These hospitals lack counsellors and social workers to persuade patients, mainly from low-income backgrounds, to donate organs of their loved ones.

“There’s a socio-economic aspect to this. Many patients we get are from slums and they are anxious about organ donation. If someone chooses not to donate, we can’t compel them,” according to a doctor from Sion Hospital, located near Asia’s largest slum, Dharavi.

Rahul Ahirwar, 24, the first patient to undergo hand transplant at civic-run Parel’s KEM hospital, is a living example of how such initiatives at the government-level can give new lease of life to many.

“After losing both my arms in an accident, never did I think that I would be able to write again. I didn’t have the money to approach a private hospital,” said Ahiwar whose hand transplant surgery cost just Rs 2,000 at the civic-run hospital.

Data shared by Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare Dr Bharti Pravin Pawar in the Rajya Sabha in March revealed that in India, 49,745 people are awaiting organ replacements. In 2022, 15,561 organ transplants took place, with 4,49,760 registered donors.