Suraj’s tale depicts the plight of countless other patients who anxiously await their turn for a cadaver donation in a hospital’s long list or pray for an unrelated donor to part with his or her kidney. In the meantime, their only mode of survival is the endless rounds of dialysis.

“Suraj survived kidney failure after his mother donated her kidney for a transplant. He was detected with the ailment when he was just four years old. Since his father died, there is no one else in the family who can act as a donor for him now. The doctors tell us his number in the waiting list for cadaver-donation transplants is 58,” says Karan, a family friend.

But Suraj is not too optimistic. For, with the list of transplant candidates running into hundreds, cadaver donations are still rare at the PGI. Doctors at the Department of Nephrology at the PGI, which is counted among the leading centres in the country for kidney transplants, say that of total transplants conducted annually, the number of transplants carried out from unrelated donors is just 10 to 15 per cent.

“We conduct around 130 to 150 transplants every year, of which around 10 per cent are routed through authorisation committees. The remaining transplants involve related donors only. In case, a patient is unable to arrange for an unrelated donor, he is left with no option but to wait for a brain-dead patient so that his organs can be transplanted,” said Professor V Sakhuja, head of the department.