Rate of inequality in kidney transplantation services access in Iran

Having equal access to healthcare services is one of the basic rights of all people. Kidney transplant beds are one of the most important and valuable resources of healthcare system which their unequal allocation can cause irrecoverable complications in addition to emergency patients’ transportation. Present study was designed to evaluate the access to kidney transplantation services in different provinces of Iran. In this applied descriptive-analytical study, number of kidney transplant beds for each province in portion with province population in year 2006 was analyzed using Gini coefficient and Lorenz curve with Excel 2007 software. The total number of kidney transplant beds in Iran was 295, which 163 (55%) of them were located in Tehran. Approximately, half of population, only has access to 20% of kidney transplant beds and the other half has access to 80%. Gini coefficient was 0.4 which demonstrated the non-equality. There isn’t equal accessibility to kidney transplant services in Iran due to unequal distribution of kidney transplant beds.