Bhaktapur February 3

When Anupama Kumari Devi of Patna, India, was diagnosed with renal failure in October, she never thought her husband would donate his kidney to save her life because she had not heard of such examples.

But her husband, Shyam Kumar, donated her his kidney. But he is only one of the four men who donated their kidneys for their wives in Human Organ Transplant Centre, Bhaktapur.

Although the rate of men donating their kidneys to their spouses remains low, doctors involved in transplant believe this will change for better in the days ahead.

Like Shyam Kumar Tiwari of Patna, Prakash Subedi of Imadole donated his kidney to his wife Pavitra who was also diagnosed with renal failure. Pavitra said her sister and mother wanted to donate their kidneys but she declined the offer because everybody on her maternal side suffered from hypertension. “I never thought that my husband would donate his kidney to me,” she added.

Out of 132 transplants that the centre has done so far, 37 (28 per cent) women have donated their kidneys to their husbands but only four men (three per cent) have donated their kidneys to their spouses. The centre provides Rs 50,000 to a man as an incentive for donating his kidney to his wife.

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Director of the centre Dr Pukar Chandra Shrestha said patriarchy was the main reason why many men were still hesitant to donate their kidneys to their spouses. “Sisters and daughters do not get priority in our society. There is a wrong belief that males could lose virility if they donate their kidneys to their spouses,” Dr Shrestha said and added that on average the kidney donors lived longer than others . He said awareness campaign should be launched to debunk the myth. Dr Shrestha said the success rate of the transplant at his hospital was 98 per cent, which was on par with the transplant of modern centres around the world.