Kidney dialysis 'near crisis'

[okarol]

Kidney dialysis 'near crisis'

BY ANGELA THOMPSON
30/05/2008 4:35:00 PM

Kidney patients are being kept alive with "patch-up" drug arrangements because there are not enough dialysis chairs in the Illawarra, health experts say.

Ten people urgently need thrice-weekly dialysis but are instead relying on drugs that erode their appetites and leave them at risk of an early death, the experts claim.

Southern sector renal manager Professor Maureen Lonergan said the service was always full, with a waiting list of about 30 patients on the brink of starting dialysis.

"It's always the anxiety that people will become unwell before a space becomes available," she said.

"It's happened. We admit them to hospital and we shuffle spaces.

"We walk in each morning and we look at the board and we juggle things."

There have been five successful kidney transplants in the sector this year but in that time 20 more patients have begun dialysis.

Although the Clinical Services Strategic Plan for the South Eastern Sydney Illawarra area includes expanding the Shellharbour satellite dialysis unit from six to 12 chairs - a move Prof Lonergan said would be enough to meet demand - funding for the expansion has not been allocated.

Medical director of Kidney Health Australia Dr Tim Matthew used this week's Kidney Health Week to call for greater government funding and planning to cope with the rapid rise of chronic kidney disease.

He said the drugs being used to treat kidney patients amounted to "very much a patch-up".

"Over a period of time, holding people off dialysis is associated with poor nutrition, leading to malnutrition and eventually an acceleration of all the complications that can lead to premature death," Dr Matthew said.

"When they're not getting dialysis when they should, they are in a state of increased risk.

"This is a sign of a health system that is being asked to cope nationally with about an 8 per cent increase in the number of people coming onto dialysis programs each year."

In the southern sector, the number of people needing dialysis is growing at a rate 3 per cent higher than the national average, thought to be the result of higher than usual indigenous and diabetic populations - both factors associated with kidney disease.

http://illawarra.yourguide.com.au/news/local/news/general/kidney-dialysis-near-crisis/780367.aspx

[Zach]

So much for national medicine.
 

[charee]

That's one of the reasons i do home hemo, my local unit was full and i would have had to travel 3.5 hours one way to a centre in Canberra, since i started the local unit has had some extra funding to open a few more chairs but i think its full again.

[Zach]

charee, I'm glad you're doing home hemo, because you'll be healthier in the long run.