In 2023, 221 heart transplants were performed across India. Of these 70 were done in Tamil Nadu, followed by Karanatala with 35, Maharashtra performed 33, Gujarat carried out 33 and Telangana saw 15 such surgeries. Delhi-NCR witnessed only 14 transplants, according to Notto data.
Officials said that the higher number of heart transplants in South India was because of more donations in the region.
India recorded a total of 1,099 heart donations in 2023, with the highest number (252) reported in Telangana, followed by Tamil Nadu and Karnataka with 178 each. Next were Maharashtra with 148, and Gujarat with 146, an official told TOI.
In a heart transplant surgery, a damaged or diseased heart is replaced with a healthy donor heart. While the liver and kidney can be donated by living donors, the heart must be donated by someone who is brain-dead and is on life support, also referred to as a ‘deceased donor’.Dr Y K Misra, head of cardiac sciences and chief cardiovascular surgeon at Manipal Hospitals, said that the southern states get more deceased donations so most patients requiring a heart transplant go there and get enrolled. “Some of these states also provide free of cost medications to heart recipients,” he added.
The first successful heart transplant in India took place at AIIMS in 1994. Since then, the number of transplants have grown substantially but, doctors say, it remains a fraction of the actual requirement.
Nearly 10 per cent of the total number of heart patients suffer from end-stage heart failure which may necessitate a transplant. But due to scarcity of donors, doctors say, only a few undergo the procedure. Private hospitals charge anywhere between Rs 20 to 25 lakh for a transplant. Govt hospitals perform the life-saving procedure for a fraction of the cost, but the wait list is too long.
Dr Sudhir Gupta, assistant professor of forensic medicine at AIIMS, said, “In India, certain amendments to Human Organ Transplant Act, 1994 are required to enhance cadaver-heart-retrieval. This may include making it mandatory for hospital ICUs to declare all brain deaths and register them with an online central organ registry for better coordination of cadaver heart donation, retrieval and transplantation.”
