THOUSANDS of people who would benefit from a kidney transplant are being denied the chance even to be considered for a donor organ because hospitals are failing to put them on the waiting list, keeping the number of would-be recipients artificially low, say Sydney doctors.

The proportion of younger dialysis patients who join the kidney waiting list has plummeted Australia-wide from 33 per cent to 22 per cent in just five years, according to analysis of transplant and kidney disease statistics, while across all age groups only 11 per cent of more than 10,000 people on dialysis are in the queue.

Organs in demand ... waiting lists for kidney transplants do not reflect the actual number of patients in need. Credit:Michele Mossop

Bruce Pussell, a Prince of Wales Hospital kidney specialist who led the research, said failure to put patients on the waiting list was unethical because even elderly people lived longer when they received a transplant.

The figures are in contrast with Britain and France, where almost half of those aged 65 or younger were given a chance of receiving an organ from a deceased donor.