A study done by the American Society of Nephrology claims to have discovered the reason for the decline in kidney donations. Jagbir Gill, MD, MPH of University of British Columbia in Vancouver and some others divided the US population between two groups.: high income populations and low income populations and they examined the rates of living donations of both income populations from 1999 to 2010.
kidney donation
The results showed that low income populations had significantly lower living donation rates than high income populations. Moreover, they noted that the difference in donation rates between the two groups became larger in recent years.
For example since 2004, lower income populations experienced a decline in living donations while the donation rate for the higher income populations was more stable. Dr Gill said that the implications of these results are that financial barriers to living donations need to addressed and alleviated to a certain extent so that people find it easier to make living donations.
Apart from the obvious medical benefits to transplant patients a single donated kidney saves $100,000 in health care. At this point though, an estimated average cost for donating a kidney is $5000 and some statistics suggest up to $20,000.
The report was based on the study published in Journal of the American Society of Nephrology (JASN).