India lags in organ donation; Experts blame misconceptions & ignorance

India has achieved a milestone in organ transplantation, recording its highest-ever number of transplants in 2025, but experts say the country continues to face a severe shortage of donor organs, leaving tens of thousands of patients waiting — often for years, and sometimes in vain. The country’s organ donation rate still remains under 1% relative to its population.

As per official estimates, with 20,138 organ transplants last year, the country saw a four-fold rise in little over a decade. However, more than 63,000 people currently need kidney transplants, and around 22,000 need liver transplants. For most of them, a donor may never be found in time. Doctors across specialties say the record numbers reflect real progress, but caution that India is still a long way from meeting demand.

Dr. Saurabh Singhal Senior Consultant & Director, Centre for Liver-GI Diseases and Transplantation (CLDT) from Aakash Healthcare said, “The rise from under 5,000 transplants a decade ago to over 20,000 last year shows what better infrastructure, awareness, and coordination between hospitals can achieve. However, we are still meeting only a fraction of the actual need. For every patient who receives a transplant, several more remain on the waiting list, and many will not survive the wait.”

Dr. Rohit Kaushal Director & Head – Urology, Robotics, Kidney Transplantation & Uro-Oncology, Asian Hospital, Faridabad said, “What is encouraging is that this growth has not happened by accident. It has come alongside stronger regulatory frameworks, like the new national guidelines on brain-stem death certification and swap transplantation. Standardising these processes across states was long overdue, and it is already helping more hospitals run credible transplant programmes.”

Public health experts point to persistent misconceptions as one of the biggest barriers to closing the gap between demand and supply. Religious and cultural apprehensions may also discourage families from consenting to donation despite the fact that no major religion in India prohibits the practice.

Dr. Dr Bipin Vibhute, Consultant and Program Director, Liver Transplant & HPB Surgery, Jupiter Hospital, Pune said, “In our experience counselling families, the hesitation comes from a lack of correct information. Every major faith practised in India supports organ donation as an act of compassion. Once families understand that, the conversation changes completely. We need many more of these conversations happening at the community level, not just in hospitals.”

Doctors say myths about how donation or transplantation affects a patient’s physical and reproductive health also keep people from coming forward — both as donors and as recipients considering treatment.

Dr Vineet Malhotra, Head of Urology, VNA Hospital said, “Organ transplantation is not just about extending life; it is about restoring quality of life. For many male patients, a successful transplant can improve energy, hormonal health, and overall sexual function. At the same time, misconceptions that organ donation affects masculinity or reproductive health need to be actively dispelled, as they have no scientific basis.”

Dr. Vineet said, “We often see patients and families worry that donating an organ, particularly a kidney, will compromise fertility. This is not supported by evidence. A healthy donor who is properly evaluated and cleared for surgery does not face reduced fertility as a result of donation. Clearing up this specific fear can meaningfully increase the number of willing living donors.”

Dr. Archana Dhawan Bajaj Founder & Director, The Nurture IVF Centre said, “From a woman’s health standpoint, the biggest gap is simply awareness. Many women who could safely be living donors are never even approached because of assumptions about their health or family responsibilities. That needs to change,and organ donation should be discussed as openly with women as it is with men.”

The government’s push to formalise the system through the National Brain Stem Death Certification Guidelines and the National Guidelines on Swap Transplantation issued by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare is aimed at filling these gaps: standardising how death is certified for donation purposes, and expanding options like swap transplants, where incompatible donor-recipient pairs are matched with other pairs in similar situations.

However, Dr. Saurabh Singhal said, “We need sustained public messaging that treats organ donation as routine and not extraordinary, and that directly confronts the myths, religious and otherwise, that keep families from saying yes.”