New Delhi: For six years, Mamta, a 48-year-old homemaker from South Delhi, has watched her husband, Stephen, 61, battle kidney failure caused by diabetes. Twice every week, she accompanies him to the dialysis unit at Holy Family Hospital, where the family’s struggle against the debilitating disease has become a way of life.
Stephen and Mamta
“When we came to know that both his kidneys had failed, it was already too late,” Mamta told Health On Air (HOA). “Initially, he required dialysis four times a month, then once a week, and now twice a week. We prayed, but God has not listened to us.”
With mounting medical expenses and an uncertain future for their two daughters and son, Mamta has decided to donate one of her kidneys to save her husband.
“I have made my family understand that a person can survive with one kidney. If my husband survives, the family will survive,” she said.
Stephen, speaking from the dialysis centre, said he never wanted his wife to undergo surgery, but strict laws governing organ donation left him with few options.
“A young man in my native place had agreed to donate his kidney, and I had promised to support him and his family throughout their lives. But that was not possible under the law. My health is deteriorating, and now my wife is insisting that I accept her kidney so that the family can survive,” he said.
Their story reflects a larger and uncomfortable reality emerging from India’s transplant landscape: women overwhelmingly donate kidneys, while men are far more likely to receive them.
According to data from the National Organ and Tissue Transplant Organisation (NOTTO) and several Indian studies, nearly 60–75 per cent of living kidney donors in the country are women, whereas 70–80 per cent of recipients are men. Wives, mothers and sisters constitute the majority of living donors.
A decade-long study conducted at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), analysing 1,171 kidney transplants performed between 2013 and 2022, has shed light on the reasons behind this imbalance. Published in the Indian Journal of Nephrology, the study was conducted by Dr Kanika Jain from the AIIMS Administration, researcher Tilotama Jamwal, Professor V.K. Bansal, and colleagues from the Department of Surgery.
The findings challenge the popular notion that women donate organs solely out of love and sacrifice.
Professor Rajesh Sagar from the Department of Psychiatry and Dr Manjari Tripathi from the Department of Neurology at AIIMS cautioned that family expectations and societal pressures cannot be ignored when evaluating organ donation.
“The decision to donate should be entirely independent. Family and societal pressures are important factors and must be recognised,” they said.
The study found that only about 15 per cent of women donated kidneys purely out of altruism. Nearly 51.8 per cent cited their subordinate position within the family and society as a major factor influencing their decision, while 33.2 per cent pointed to financial vulnerability. Three-fourths of the women donors said they were aware of the risks involved in organ donation.
Researchers found that many women considered saving their husbands or sons paramount because men were perceived as the primary breadwinners, while women viewed themselves as caregivers responsible for preserving the family structure.
The findings raise serious questions about whether organ donation in India is always an act of free choice or whether it is often shaped by deeply entrenched social and cultural expectations.
As thousands of patients remain on dialysis and wait endlessly for a transplant, experts say the country must not celebrate women’s sacrifice without examining the unequal social realities that make such sacrifices seem inevitable.
For women like Mamta, donating a kidney is not merely an act of love. It is a decision born out of responsibility, fear and the burden of keeping a family together—a burden that, in many Indian households, continues to fall disproportionately on women.
(Cover Representative CANVA Image)
