http://www.canada.com/edmontonjournal/news/story.html?id=77a73932-59cf-494e-a580-b29ed9e1957b&k=96594
Dialysis patients welcome high-tech busEDMONTON - Brian Elkow is looking forward to the moment a gigantic medical bus roles into Whitecourt and begins cleaning his blood.
Until now, the 66-year-old has had to drive four hours to Edmonton for life-saving kidney treatment. Now, a $2.1 million bus, converted into a mobile dialysis unit, will be heading to Whitecourt and Hinton every week to deliver treatment to patients in their community.
"I'm just going to spend more time at home," said Elkow, a 66-year-old whose diabetes has taken his left leg below the knee, the sight in his left eye and his kidney function. Without a dialysis unit in the Whitecourt hospital, Elkow had to spend $325 for gas and a driver to get him to Edmonton three times each week.
The high-tech bus will now drive to Elkow's community and can treat six patients on board at one time, hooking them up to oxygen if needed, connecting them via satellite with doctors and nurses in Edmonton, and entertaining them with TVs while their blood is cleaned.
Only four patients in Whitecourt and another two in Hinton need to use the unit right now, but Deb Gordon, vice-president and chief operating officer of the University and Stollery Children's hospitals, said she expects those numbers to grow.
"We can't possibly put a fixed dialysis machine in each and every town," Gordon said, noting that it costs about $50,000 to treat a person on dialysis each year. "The closer that we can bring the services to patients, the better we are."
A $2.1-million grant from the provincial government built the unit, the only one in operation outside Quebec. It will focus its work in the Aspen Health region, which covers a vast swatch of land from Jasper to Cold Lake.
jsinnema@thejournal.canwest.com
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