The Health Ministry from now on will bear the entire costs, including the surgeon’s fee, charges of operating room personnel as well as hospital stay in state-run hospitals, for patients undergoing organ transplant, announced Dr Mohammad Kazemeini, head of Organ Transplantation Office at the Health Ministry. Annually, thousands of kidney, heart, liver and lung transplant surgeries are performed at 46 transplant centers across the country, ISNA reported. Last year (ended in March), 3,300 patients got new organs, with 2,500 kidney transplants. According to the Young Journalists Club (YJC), in 2013 patients had to pay more than $2600 to living kidney donors as “gift money.”
