Power Outage Scares Dialysis Patients

[okarol]

Power Outage Scares Dialysis Patients

By Andrew Pereira

Story Updated: Dec 29, 2008 at 6:10 PM HST

STORY SUMMARY>>>

While most people on Oahu were worried about the food in their refrigerator becoming spoiled during Friday’s island-wide power outage, Jo Anne Kam of Punaluu had a much greater concern – her 82 year old husband.

"I'm worried he's going to die,” Kam said of her husband Samuel. “What if I get him to the hospital and there's other people on dialysis and they can't take my husband?”

Kam was shocked to learn that only one of the state’s off-hospital dialysis clinics has an emergency generator. Because of the blackout her husband was unable to receive dialysis for four days and was already showing severe symptoms of blood poisoning.

“He was starting to get delusional. He was seeing things and hearing things."

The Fresenius clinic at Windward City Shopping Center where Kam normally receives treatments three times a week was still without power Saturday, forcing him and other patients to go on a renal diet.

Fresenius clinic manager Evelyn Hipple told Khon2 the company was prepared to use the emergency generator at its Koolau location, but low water pressure meant water treatment systems needed for dialysis would not function properly.

“We have to have a certain amount of water pressure to make the water treatment system work effectively,” said Hipple.

Fresenius is currently in the process of installing plug-in generators in eight of its nine clinics in Hawaii. She says in the event of a disaster Hawaiian Electric Company would have to install portable generators into the plug-ins due to their “high voltage.”

For dialysis patients like Samuel Kam, emergency power could be the difference between life and death. With nearly 2,500 people in Hawaii in need of dialysis, hospitals would simply not have enough machines to service the need.

"There's a lot of people out there on dialysis,” said Kam’s Wife. “Who's going to decide who's going to get it and who's not going to get it?"

Andrew may be reached at apereira@khon2.com or ph. 591-4263.

http://www.khon2.com/news/local/36863204.html

[Chris]

"The Fresenius clinic at Windward City Shopping Center where Kam normally receives treatments three times a week was still without power Saturday, forcing him and other patients to go on a renal diet."

Aren't nost dialysis patients on a renal diet to begin with?

Seems odd to me that they waited to put them on a renal diet, then again the news story doesn't tell us everything and most times the writer has no clue what they are writing about.