Your Stories: Long Wait for Dialysis CenterLast Update: 1/07 8:30 pm
Oneida (WSYR-TV) - The demand for kidney dialysis is soaring once again around Central New York, and there's no room left for patients who need the service. People are waiting months to find a spot in one of the local dialysis centers.
Jenny Mae Gardiner has multiple health and mental health problems, and has lived for 4 years in a suburban Boston facility. Gardiner could come home, if there was anyplace for her to receive kidney dialysis. “Faxton-St. Luke's is full, with a long waiting list. St. Joseph's, University, they've all got waiting lists. The closest place I found was Geneva, New York, and that's over an hour's drive,” says Betty Gardiner, the mother of Jenny Mae.
A spokeswoman for St. Joseph's Hospital says all 360 spaces at St. Joe's dialysis centers around Central New York are full, and there are waiting lists. When a space does open up, priority goes to local residents. For patients like Jenny Mae, who want to transfer in, the wait can be as long as 6 months.
“The only way they have an opening on the waiting list is if somebody who's on dialysis now, either moves, or dies,” says Gardiner. Betty fears the baby girl she adopted 27 years ago may not live much longer. “There are so many people out there that are in kidney failure that need this help, and there's no place for them to go.”
Several years ago, NewsChannel 9's Your Stories reported the need for more dialysis service in Cortland. St. Joseph's hospital just last year opened a new center there. However, a spokeswoman says the cost of staffing these dialysis units is very high, and time consuming. It can take three months to train a registered nurse to work in kidney dialysis.
The main factor pushing dialysis demand is diabetes.
http://www.9wsyr.com/news/local/story.aspx?content_id=0d6886d2-401a-4a14-bc0d-959f6d2ced62&rss=112
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