In Your Community: Helping Dialysis Patients

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 Feb 17, 2010 9:06 am US/Eastern
In Your Community: Helping Dialysis Patients
Nicole Maristany
MIAMI (CBS4) ―

Kidney failure often leaves patients on expensive dialysis and that can deplete a budget fast. But there is a local foundation which can help with the basic things like food.

George Villegas has been on kidney dialysis for seven years.

"You need some help with this, you can't do it alone," said Villegas, "I'm here at the dialysis center three times a week, four hours every time."

Before experiencing kidney failure, Villegas was an industrial engineer.

"I traveled all over the world, I worked 16 hours a day and that kind of ended" said Villegas.

Living alone and exhausted after dialysis, it became hard to do the simple things in life, like buying food which is critical.

"They can actually make your heart stop, if you eat too much or eat at the wrong time," Villegas explained.

He then started receiving food from the Dialysis Food Foundation of South Florida, the only foundation of its kind in the country.

"We buy bulk food and we pack up the food into bags and we give it to the patients on a weekly basis, 7 days a week in a bag," said founder Loretta DeVries who began the foundation after her husband went on dialysis.

"I spent a great deal of time here, and became aware of the fact that people not only had problem with foods, many of them weren't eating at all," DeVries explained.

She now works with local doctors to make sure the dialysis patients don't go hungry, doctors say they can see the difference in the patients served by the program.

"When we look at our patients that we are feeding versus the ones that are not fed, we have less hospitalizations, their entire social lives are better and it makes a huge impact," said Dr. Jochen Riser, a Professor at the University of Miami and Chief of Nephrology.

Villegas said he was grateful for the help he's received.

"It would be much harder, I mean I may not even be here, if I hadn't had that support," said Villegas.

The cost to feed one patient is less than $4 a day.

For more information on how you can sponsor a patient, give Neighbors 4 Neighbors a call at 305-597-4404 or visit The Dialysis Food Foundation of South Florida. http://dialysisfoodfoundation.org/

http://cbs4.com/local/dialysis.food.foundation.2.1499963.html