Narayana Health City observed that 65 per cent of kidney donors at its hospital are women and 70 per cent of renal patients being men in 2014-15.
According to a report published in Indian Journal of Nephrology, in spousal kidney donation, wives constituted about 87 per cent of all spousal donors, and the trend is evident across India too. Women volunteer to donate kidneys due to economic and social factors. They outnumber men as live-related donors in most renal transplant programmes in India, with reported ratios of 6:1 in some centres.
This year, Narayana Health City observed the International Women’s Day and World Kidney Day simultaneously. Five women from different parts of Karnataka were felicitated on the occasion for donating their kidney and giving a new lease of life to their loved ones. Present on the occasion were a team of Nephrologists from Narayana Health City headed by Dr. Lloyd Vincent, HOD and Consultant Nephrologist.
“Our aim is to eliminate gender inequality by raising awareness with gender-specific data for dialysis and transplant. Our transplant teams and transplant social workers are sensitive to the social complexities of the Indian women’s lives with increased understanding of the effects of renal disease. More focus is also placed on the underlying medical, societal or psychological processes that lead to gender bias in the field of kidney transplantation”, says Dr. Vincent.
Gender inequity in access to medical care is a phenomenon seen world over and kidney disease is no exception. In India gender disparities are a major ethical concern in renal donation and transplantation. Women have a lower chance of receiving hemodialysis and kidney transplant than men, but they constitute the majority of living kidney donors. Prior Indian reports suggest that women not only donate live-related kidneys, but are also less likely to receive a live kidney than men.“Although denied equal access to kidney transplantation women transplant recipients tend to cope better after the procedure,” he adds.
Kidney donation is a safe process and once completely evaluated, the chance of the donation affecting a woman’s lifespan is extremely low where risks of having a life threatening problem with donating a kidney is 1 in 3,000. Women of childbearing age can have children after kidney donation as the donor surgery does not affect reproductive organs.
Narayan Health group has one of India’s largest Dialysis programs with 217 dialysis beds and 1,30,000 dialysis procedures every year. Its Department of Nephrology provide Continuous Renal Replacement Therapy (CRRT), Peritoneal Dialysis (CPD), PlasmaDialysis (Plasmapharesis), Liver Dialysis (MARS Therapy), Kidney Transplant, Combined Kidney and Liver Transplant and Kidney Biopsy. It also includes fully functional units for radiological examinations, catheterisation labs and deal with tissue typing.