Home treatment for kidney patients

Home treatment for kidney patients

By Noimat Olayiwola
Staff Reporter
Latest Update: Sunday8/3/2009March, 2009, 11:24 PM Doha Time

The dialysis unit of Hamad General Hosptial has started a home-assisted peritoneal dialysis (PD) for the elderly, blind and people who do not have family members.
Speaking to Gulf Times, peadiatric nephrologist Dr Abdulla al-Kaabi and nephrology consultant Dr Hassan al-Malki said the target of the scheme, which began about four weeks ago, was to have up to between 30 and 50 patients from the present five patients being treated under the scheme.
Peritoneal dialysis is a lifesaving treatment option for patients with severe chronic kidney ailment and kidney transplantation and during dialysis, substances such as water, salts, and waste products are removed (from the body’s normal metabolism), which build up in patients with failing kidneys.
According to Dr Al-Kaabi, in PD, a dialysis fluid is injected into patient’s abdominal cavity (the belly), which is covered by a thin membrane, containing many small blood vessels. This membrane, called the peritoneum, is like a big bag that contains much of the intestines, helping to keep them in place. The dialysis fluid will make water, salts, and the waste products move from the blood into the fluid (also called solution).
“This process is called dialysis, and means that the peritoneum works as a dialysis filter. As the fluid gets saturated after a while, the solution must be exchanged regularly,” the doctor explained.
“We came up with the idea of the home-assisted dialysis as we noticed that coming to the hospital for regular dialysis might be too strenuous for our old patients, some of who are equally blind and some of them do not have family members who could properly look after them,” Dr Hassan said.
He said on a daily basis, nurses visit the homes of the patients twice to attend to them and provide all their medical needs.
The doctors, however, noted that though both hemodialysis – another option of dialysis - and peritoneal dialysis are lifesaving measures for people with CKD, transplant is the ultimate treatment as both measures are prone to infections and side effects.
“We have embarked on a campaign to educate the patients and their family members on the importance of organ donation, especially kidney and recently a committee has been formed at the Ministry of Health’s level to look into organ donation within the country,” they said.
Both doctors were optmistic that the launch of the third dialysis unit in Qatar at Al Khor Hospital by the end of this month, would relieve the existing facilities, while another Qtel Dialysis Centre to open within the next six months would also help.
A kidney transplant centre in Qatar is also possible in the future, they said, adding that an organ sharing project is being planned in the Gulf region.

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