Renal patients cry for help

Renal patients cry for help

By Temba Dube
Tuesday, September 09, 2008

THE Government has been called upon to assist people living with kidney ailment as a number of them have painfully succumbed to kidney failure due to failure to access dialysis machines.
Renal patients in Bulawayo are forced to travel to Harare to access dialysis machines at Parirenyatwa Hospital while 12 machines donated to Mpilo Central Hospital have been gathering dust for years.
However, only a few lucky people living with kidney problems can afford to meet the expenses of accessing dialysis machines every week.
One of the renal patients, who made headlines early this year seeking financial assistance for treatment of the disease, finally succumbed to kidney failure on Tuesday last week amid revelations that many more have also passed on.
The case of Siduduzile Masuku (26) of Njube, who was buried at Hyde Park Cemetery on Friday, highlighted the painful plight of families of people living with kidney ailments.
Renal failure is a medical condition where kidneys cease to function. All the waste from the body, including urine, would then have to be removed using a dialysis machine.
If the waste is not removed, the patient swells up and dies a painful death.
Chronicle caught up with Siduduzile's unemployed mother Mrs Florah Masuku at the family home in Njube and she told a sad story of what she saw of her daughter.
"She was diagnosed with kidney failure in November 2006 and was referred to Mpilo Central Hospital for dialysis treatment. At the time, the Mpilo Dialysis machine was servicing 19 patients so we had to go to Parirenyatwa Hospital in Harare where twelve machines were working," said Mrs Masuku, with tears streaming down her cheeks.
She said a church member accommodated them at Glen View for nine months while her daughter went for dialysis sessions twice a week.
"In 2007 the machines at the (Parirenyatwa) hospital broke down and we had to go to Mater Dei Hospital because without treatment, my daughter would have died," said Mrs Masuku.
She said the cost of sessions went up steeply at Mater Dei that year so they were forced to go back to Parirenyatwa after the machines had been repaired.
However, even at Parirenyatwa the family had to fork out large sums of money every week. Mrs Masuku said at the time of Siduduzile's death, the family was spending $6 000 per session of dialysis, $1 800 for artificial dialysing kidney, R150 for dialysis concentrate, R130 for bloodlines among other expenses that they had to take care of every week.
Mrs Masuku lamented the seeming lack of Government policy on kidney patients saying all through her daughter's suffering, she had not been able to get assistance from the Government.
"There were times when we had nothing to eat and I would go to the Njube Clinic to try and get donor food, but I would be turned away and told the food was for HIV/AIDS patients," she said.
People living with HIV/AIDS receive free food and medication from the Government.
Mrs Masuku appealed to the Ministry of Health and Child Welfare to come up with ways of helping kidney patients because it seemed that they were not prioritised like those living with HIV/AIDS.
She said dialysis machines often break down and the disease, which is treatable, then becomes deadly.
Mrs Masuku said very few families in the country could afford dialysis treatment and her daughter relied on well- wishers like Revival Bus Service and her two siblings in South Africa.
"My daughter is gone though I believe with more Government involvement she would still be alive. For the sake of other parents who have the same problem, I hope the twelve new dialysis machines gathering dust at Mpilo Hospital start working soon. I wish patients would also have their medication heavily subsidised like that of other chronic patients who have diseases like AIDS," she said.
She added that of the 20 people, who were on dialysis at Mpilo when her daughter was referred there in 2006, only two are still alive.

http://www.chronicle.co.zw/inside.aspx?sectid=2674&cat=1