While the wait for a kidney may seem endless for patients with end-stage kidney disease on the wait-list for transplants, here’s some good news for them. The Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital on Thursday launched a new dialysis centre with 12 new haemodialysis machines.
The centre, set up with donations, will initially offer dialysis to 24 patients each day, until eight more machines are added.
A patient with kidney failure requires two or three dialysis sessions every week, wherein he is hooked onto a machine that will perform the duties of his kidneys and cleanse his blood.
Inaugurating the new centre on World Kidney Day, State Health Minister K C Veeramani appreciated the efforts of the hospital and the benevolent donors, in setting up the dialysis centre.
The dilapidated sterilisation block, which was an abandoned building with a leaky roof, has been renovated and spruced up to house the new dialysis centre. “We received a total of `1.05 crore to set up the unit, including generous donations of three dialysis machines from the Indian Society of Nephrologists, and five from Lion P T Ali, trustee of the Accident and Death Care Cell, who also donated two large reverse osmosis plants to support 20 dialysis machines,” said Dr V Kanagasabhai, dean, Madras Medical College and RGGGH. Four more dialysis machines, costing `30 lakh were procured using the funds generated from the CM’s health insurance scheme.
At any given time, the hospital has 250 to 300 patients on the waiting list for cadaver kidneys.
“While there are hundreds of patients who need dialysis, we give first priority to those who are seriously ill, and very poor,” said Dr Kanagasabai, pointing out that the old dialysis centre at the nephrology ward also had 10 machines running on double shifts every day.