BANGALORE: Persons with kidney failure, who need to be on dialysis but cannot travel to the hospital, can learn how to do it themselves at the peritoneal dialysis centre at Manipal Hospital.

There are over 2 lakh persons in the country who have developed kidney failure but only 5 to 10 per cent of them receive any treatment because of lack of infrastructure and financial constraints, said Sudarshan Ballal, Director of Manipal Institute of Nephrology and Urology.

At the centre, that was inaugurated by Amulya Reddy, a member of the board of International Energy Initiatives, on Wednesday, technicians will train persons on how to administer dialysis units themselves. The patients will be given information pamphlets provided by Baxter Corporation of the U.S.

It will be a one-stop centre for counselling in all forms of renal replacement therapy for every patient having end stage renal failure, said Dr. Ballal.

When a person is diagnosed with end stage renal failure and on dialysis, the hospital will ask them whether they want to come to the hospital for dialysis or whether they would prefer to have it done at home. If they choose to self-administer it, a schedule will be drawn up so that they can meet the trainers and slowly learn the process. "It will take them a few weeks of training and than we will let them administer the dialysis at home," said Dr. Ballal.

The centre will provide the patient all the equipment required to carry out the dialysis. The cost of the equipment and the training will be added to the consultation fees.

Dr. Ballal said the equipment required for the Chronic Ambulatory Peritoneal Dialysis (CAPD) are only a catheter and some solutions. "There are no large equipment or big process that the person needs to observe," he said.

CAPD works by filtering toxins and other excess materials from the blood. A catheter is implanted surgically and the abdominal cavity is filled with a solution of water and chemicals (dialysate).

The peritoneum, the lining of the abdominal cavity, draws toxins out of the blood back into the abdominal cavity where it sits for a set period of time before being removed and replaced with another dialysate by the patient.

R. Basil, Chief Executive Officer of Manipal Hospital and Manipal Health Systems, said: "The centre will be an important repository of information for doctors and other care-givers managing larger chronic ambulatory peritoneal dialysis units."

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