New Delhi: Rohini Acharya, belonging to a prominent political family of Bihar, is in the news after the recent Bihar elections. He donated one of his kidneys to save the life of his father Lalu Prasad Yadav. At that time she proudly said that this was only a small part of the meat, which she would gladly give for her father.
His words reflected his deep love for his father. But after the elections, Rohini, who was always devoted to her family, is now extremely sad, and this is evident from her recent social media posts. The situation has become so bad that he has decided to separate himself from the family.
Rohini termed her father’s decision to donate his kidney as unwise and said that no woman should do this. He also said that after marriage, in-laws are a woman’s real home and she should remain responsible towards her in-laws.
Although Rohini termed her kidney donation decision as wrong, organ donation, especially kidney donation, is a risky decision for women in India. Nevertheless, women show great heart to save the lives of family members.
There is a huge imbalance in living organ donation in India. According to the National Organ and Tissue Transplant Organization (NOTTO) report, 80% of living organ donors in the country are women, while women constitute only 18.9% of organ recipients. These data are based on a study published in the Journal of Experimental and Clinical Transplantation.
The study analyzed 36,640 organ transplant procedures between 1995 and 2021. It was found that women got much less benefit from organ transplantation than men. Of the total recipients, only 6,945 were women (18.9%), while the rest were men. Many physicians believe that this difference is influenced not only by social factors, but also by the pattern of disease.
The report states that social attitudes in India are different towards women and men. It is easier for a man to refuse organ donation, whereas women are often seen in the caregiving role. Many times women even risk their health by donating their organs to save the life of their husband, father or son.
Experts say the imbalance is not just gender-based. When the donor and recipient are not from the same family, the donor is often poorer than the recipient. Furthermore, the person donating is usually younger in age, while the recipient is older in age.
According to WHO, India has now become the world’s second largest center for living organ transplantation after the US. Here 74% of kidney donors are women, whereas in America this figure is 62%. In cases of liver donation, the number of women is 60.5% in India and 53% in America.
The same trend is seen in the data collected by crowdfunding platform Milap. Of the 495 liver transplants he facilitated, 66% were for male patients and 34% were for female patients.
