Southampton Hospital Dialysis Center improves comfort

Southampton Hospital Dialysis Center improves comfort
By Brendan O'Reilly
Mar 31, 09 9:43 AM

Being on dialysis is like having a second job, according to Dr. Gaylord Hoffert, the medical director of Southampton Hospital Regional Dialysis Center in Hampton Bays. Patients have to sit through hours of treatment three days a week.

Thanks to a recent donation, all that sitting should be a little easier for patients to bear.

All 17 of the center’s dialysis treatment chairs have been replaced with comfy, gel-cushioned recliners.

In February, the J. Couper Lord Fund donated the new chairs, at a cost of about $1,000 each, to the dialysis center, the only one of its kind on the South Fork. The recliners—one for each dialysis station at the center and one back-up—are made with cushions that conform to each patients’ body shape. Around the same time, the hospital replaced all of its dialysis machines with new state-of-the-art equipment.

The combination of new chairs and new machines has made for happier patients and better results, said Dr. Hoffert, a nephrologist who joined the dialysis center in November.

The J. Couper Lord Fund was started in 2005 in memory of James “Coupie” Lord, a patient at the regional dialysis center who died that year at the age of 55. His mother, Barbara Lord, said recently that her son admired the nurses and staff at the Southampton Hospital Regional Dialysis Center, and the feeling was mutual. “They all loved Coupie.”

She knew that he wanted to get the dialysis center an electricity generator, which it lacked, so after he died a letter was sent out to Mr. Lord’s family and friends asking for contributions.

“His friends were wonderfully generous,” Ms. Lord said, and the dialysis center soon had a generator.

It came into use late last year, when there was a power failure, hospital spokeswoman Marsha Kenny said. It kicked in and restored power within seconds, she said. “The staff did not miss a beat.”

Since the fund started in 2005, the Lords have continued to make an annual appeal. Last year’s was for the new dialysis chairs.

There are about 150 people on the mailing list, and the response is always overwhelming, according to Ms. Lord. “It never fails to amaze me.”

With such a good response last year, there was enough money left over in the fund that Ms. Lord plans to buy new chairs for the waiting room next. The fund also paid for a new hardwood floor for the center’s lobby a few years back.

Mr. Lord had a kidney transplant in 1997, but the kidney failed after a few years, forcing him back on dialysis. By the second time he started dialysis, the Southampton Hospital Regional Dialysis Center has opened its doors.

Before it opened in 1999, dialysis patients had to trek to Riverhead or Patchogue for treatment.

Dialysis treatment replaces the function of a person’s kidneys. “A kidney is basically a filter,” Dr. Hoffert explained. Kidneys concentrate gallons of water into just one or two quarts a day and remove toxins like uric acid and potassium, he said.

Common causes of kidney failure, or renal failure, are diabetes, hypertension and vascular disease, Dr. Hoffert said.

Dialysis may be permanent for some patients, but others either receive a kidney transplant or their kidney function is restored if it was not irreversibly damaged. Dr. Hoffert said that, in one rare example, chemotherapy patients may need dialysis on a temporary basis while their kidneys recuperate from insufficient hydration.

Most dialysis patients have a chronic and slow development toward kidney failure, Dr. Hoffert said. They are increasingly drowsy and less mobile and their quality of life is compromised, he said. But after starting dialysis, they feel better and any apprehension they had about starting treatment is relieved too, he said.

The regional dialysis center opens each morning at 6 a.m. and continues to see patients till about 4 p.m. or later. The center has between 50 and 55 patients and sees even more during the summer. It has the capacity to see 16 patients at a time, so patients come in shifts.

Dr. Hoffert said his goal is to have three shifts a day at the dialysis center, rather than two, so the hospital gets the most use out of the facility.

Each dialysis station is equipped with its own television to help the patients pass the time, Dr. Hoffert said, adding that his next plans are to add on-demand movies and wireless internet.

Some dialysis centers give off the impression of a mass production factory, but Southampton’s dialysis center is warm and comfortable, Dr. Hoffert said.

“We have a high nurse-to-patient ratio,” the doctor said. And since the patients and nurses see each other so often, they develop personal relationships, he said. “Our unit goes beyond your dialysis needs.”

Seeing a nurse three times a week is a good way for patients to have their overall health monitored and the dialysis center also has a staff dietician, Pat Vonatski, Dr. Hoffert noted.

Dr. Hoffert said his long-term ambition is to see Southampton Hospital creating a division of nephrology, the diagnosis and treatment of kidney diseases.

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