NEW DELHI: The Centre, for the first time, has decided to offer home-based dialysis services, or peritoneal dialysis, to patients suffering from end-stage kidney failure through the Prime Minister National Dialysis Programme, started in 2016.
So far, only hemodialysis — in which blood is filtered through a machine (installed at a dialysis centre) that acts like an artificial kidney — was part of the scheme. Under the scheme, dialysis is offered free of cost to needy patients who are below poverty line at district hospitals or higher level government facilities.
Every year about 2.2 lakh new patients of end-stage renal disease get added in India resulting in additional demand for 3.4 crore dialysis every year. Patients end up spending nearly `3-4 lakh annually on treatment in private sector.
The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, which has now issued guidelines to the states to include peritoneal dialysis under the programme, hopes this will reduce patients’ out-of-pocket expenditure and avoid the need to travel to and fro to hospitals. “It will allow patients to have better quality of life,” said a senior official.
“It’s a sad reality that only about 10,000 patients are on peritoneal dialysis that’s much more cost-effective and efficient,” said Vivekanand Jha, Executive Director, George Institute for Global Health, who chaired an expert panel that came up with extensive guidelines. “That should change now as more and more patients get access to high quality and clinically safe peritoneal dialysis.”
Chronic kidney disease afflicts huge no. of Indians
The proportion of chronic kidney disease patients in the country amounts to 8-17 per cent of the total population and about 10-20% of those with disease eventually develop end-stage kidney failure