Osh clinic cannot use its full liver-transplant capacity because donors are hard to match

A liver-transplant clinic in Osh could perform about 50 operations a year, but donor matching is sharply limiting its work. The Osh State University medical clinic is one of only three facilities in Kyrgyzstan that perform organ transplants and the only one in the country’s southern region to transplant livers.

Since the start of the year, doctors have carried out nine transplants, with another eight scheduled for September and October. Physician Beksultan Seyitbek uulu said the main difficulty was finding suitable donors. Of 12 patients who sought liver transplants, only two could undergo surgery because the other donors failed to meet medical criteria.

On August 25, doctors transplanted part of the liver from a 35-year-old man into his mother, Yakutkhan Kyrgyzbaeva. The 12-hour operation was successful, and both mother and son were in stable condition.

Organ transplantation has begun developing in Kyrgyzstan in recent years. Previously, patients needing liver transplants had to seek treatment abroad. The country still has no unified register of patients awaiting liver or kidney transplants, although authorities are considering a single database.

Health Ministry figures cited by the report show that 578 Kyrgyz citizens had received liver transplants by January 1, 2026. Kidney transplantation is provided free of charge through state funding, while liver transplantation remains paid and costs $25,000.