Portable dialysis gives grandma at-home care

Portable dialysis gives grandma at-home care
A new lease on life
By Christine McConville / The Pulse | Tuesday, October 12, 2010 | http://www.bostonherald.com | Local

Aurelie Blanchard feels like a teenager, at 70.

After years of dragging herself to a dialysis center twice a week to keep her failing kidneys functioning, this Methuen grandmother of 10 now gets to stay healthy - while staying home.

Thanks to “Clyde,” a portable dialysis machine made by NxStage Medical in Lawrence, Blanchard has reduced her health-care costs, improved her health and boosted her morale.

“I have my social life back,” she said last week.

Blanchard, who suffers from a rare autoimmune disease, is among the 500,000 Americans with kidney failure. To stay alive, she must remove waste products and water from her blood, via a complicated and costly medical procedure known as hemodialysis.

It’s a twice-a-week procedure that some Americans with kidney failure already rely on.

The number is expected to double in coming years as the nation faces the long-term complications of diabetes, obesity and hypertension.

That means our national health-care costs will soar, because Medicaid covers the enormous costs of hemodialysis.

For Blanchard, the bill for a single session at the clinic was $964, while her at-home sessions cost the government $310, for supplies.

“The savings is significant,” said Blanchard, who doesn’t pay out of pocket for the treatments, but scrutinizes her statements anyway for fraud.

Since 2005 when the FDA approved NxStage Medical’s portable at-home dialysis machine, sales at the Lawrence company have been soaring.

“It’s the poster child for where health care could go,” NxStage chief executive Jeff Burbank told The Pulse. “The product enhanced people’s quality of life, and reduces the cost of care.”

Using the machine can be complicated. Blanchard and her husband, George, underwent an eight-week training course before taking Clyde home. And now, as a precautionary backup, Blanchard’s daughter is learning how to operate her mother’s machine.

“It’s not for everyone,” Burbank said, “but for the right people, it can be empowering on many, many levels.”

Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view.bg?articleid=1288241