Is India fast becoming a Destination for Transplant Tourism?

It was heartwarming to read the news of how a 2-and-a-half-year-old child saved the many lives even in his death. As he become the youngest cadaver donor to save the life of a 4-year-old child from Russian by donating a heart and by saving the life of another 4-year-old child from Ukraine by donating his lungs.

But this is not 1st time that a foreign patient’s life was saved with Organ transplant in India. Heart and lung transplants have been offered to International patients since long. It is estimated that 1 million patients travel to India from overseas to get treated every year and 2% of these patients come here for variety of transplant procedures. These procedures include Liver Transplants, Kidney Transplants, Bone Marrow Transplants, Cornea Transplants apart from the Lung and Heart Transplants. Off late we have also started to receive queries for Intestinal Transplants.

What has contributed to India becoming a large centre in the world for Transplant is the possibility of living donor transplants in Liver and Kidney. But a donor registry system in India has contributed successfully in growth of Heart and Lung Transplant as well.

Even in Bone Marrow Transplant in which Autologous and Sibling matched Allogenic Transplants are done regularly, many major centres in India are now doing half matched Bone Marrow Transplants where the Bone Marrow is taken from the one of the biological parents. Gone further we can even do a full matched unrelated donor transplant where we can find out a matching Bone Marrow from the global registry system.

Dr. Vivek Vij, an expert in Liver Transplants and dominates the space of treating Foreign patients who seek Liver Transplants in India says, “Today, India leads the Title of becoming a Transplant Tourism Destination because of low cost and very high success rates. The transplant success rates can be compared to anywhere in the world. We also lead the space of living donor transplants as countries like USA leave us a with a large gap to fill in.” Fortis Hospitals where Dr. Vij operates witnesses a very heavy influx of foreign patients.

Indeed, in USA there is a large gap between the required numbers of transplants that needs to be done and those which are actually done. Also, in European nations where NHS kicks in there is a long waiting time. The critically sick people cannot afford to wait. In Eastern European nations Liver diseases has been a cause of concern. Uzbekistan alone contributes close to 300 Liver Transplants to India. Dr. Vijya Laxmi, an expert on Kidney transplants, reciprocates the thought expressed by Dr. Vivek Vij. Dr Vijya works at Apollo Hospitals in New Delhi and is possibly one of the busiest hospitals serving International patients from over 20 years now. Dr. Vijya has a very heavy flow of Kidney Transplant patients from Africa.

Dr. Pawan Singh, says that most of the transplant experts have trained themselves in India and abroad. He also considers that the education process in India ensures that we developing an expertise on the subjects we deal in and with large number of Domestic patients available to treat, adds to the much-needed exposure and practice. Dr. Pawan Heads the Bone Marrow Transplant program at Artemis Hospitals, A JCI accredited hospitals in India. The transplant numbers estimated to be at 20000 International Patients for India per year currently, is growing at 20% per annum. With growing confidence of people from the western countries and with population in growing economies becoming financially more able, these numbers will keep growing even more.