Local dialysis centers offer luxury amenities

Posted on Sat, Nov. 17, 2007
Local dialysis centers offer luxury amenities
By ROBERTA C. NELSON
bcnelson@bradenton.com

In a competitive market for dialysis services, kidney dialysis centers are offering their patients amenities similar to those found in luxury spas.

All dialysis centers must comply with strict laws and regulations governing medical care facilities. But, it is not uncommon for patients to also find Internet connections, individual flat-screen TVs with cable service, and recliners that give a back massage.

"Anything to make them comfortable," said Mary Lou Hadley, a registered nurse and the clinic manager at Bradenton Dialysis Center.

Dialysis patients are people whose kidneys have ceased to filter their blood. The life-sustaining function of healthy kidneys is replaced by artificial means. Some patients with renal failure can perform a type of dialysis at home called "peritoneal dialysis," but those who cannot must visit a clinic for 3- to 4-hour treatments three times each week.

Without the regular and frequent treatments, they will die. Renal failure is caused by many diseases or conditions, but for most patients, it is a secondary effect of diabetes.

"The disease takes away all control they have in their life," said NancePhillips, a registered nurse who is clinic administrator at Southwest Florida Dialysis Center. "We want our patients to be as comfortable as possible, in a warm and supportive atmosphere."

Linda Babb, 58, is a dialysis patient at Southwest who was diagnosed with diabetes in 1983. She has been on dialysis treatment for the past four years after suffering renal failure following open heart surgery.

Babb visits Southwest three times each week, on the same three days at virtually the same time. She has nodding acquaintances with some other patients that may go back several years.

"It's your home away from home," she said. "It's your family away from family."

Hadley said the Bradenton Dialysis Center plans to offer wireless Internet connections in the near future. Services already offered are individual televisions, Sirius Satellite radio and DVD players with headphones. Massage chairs at Bradenton Dialysis are also heated, as the dialysis process makes patients feel cold. The center opened Sept. 10.

Other dialysis centers in Manatee County also offer some patient amenities. All are owned or co-owned by national or regional corporations with the exception of Southwest Florida Dialysis Center, which recently became independently owned by Drs. Thomas Braxtan, Guruswamy Ramamurthy and Vinod Prasad.

Another service some dialysis centers provide is concierge-type arrangements when their patients go on vacation.

Babb visits her grandchildren in Indiana and her brothers in Georgia. While she is away, she must still have her dialysis treatments.

"I just let them know, and they made the arrangements," she said. "They send the information they need."

Hadley said there are even dialysis facilities on cruise ships.

While it's possible to live on dialysis, it is a terrible inconvenience. In addition to the treatments, patients must have an access point on their bodies created by a surgeon. An access point might be a catheter or surgically created fistula or a port created by vascular surgery.

"Especially in the beginning, there are some acceptance issues," Phillips said. "We need to teach them to understand more about the disease."

Babb, like many other dialysis patients, is on a waiting list for a kidney transplant, Phillips said.

"We have had about four or five patients in the past year who have had transplants," Phillips said.

Once the patient has successful transplant surgery, he does not need dialysis. The center loses a client.

"But you never mind a 'loss' like that," Phillips said.

Roberta C. Nelson, staff writer, can be reached at 748-0411, ext 2121.

http://www.bradenton.com/health/story/207237.html