The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : Efforts on to make dialysis affordable

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Aug 22, 2007
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Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

Efforts on to make dialysis affordable

Alladi Jayasri

The high cost of dialysis is a frightening prospect
Bangalore has around 35 dialysis centres

BANGALORE: The recent kidney scam has brought into focus many uncomfortable truths that are often swept under the carpet. For instance, though it is well known that Karnataka has two lakh patients with renal failure who require dialysis or transplant, many can afford neither.

Though it is well known that while a renal transplant is the best solution for end-stage renal disease (ESRD), dialysis is the next best option. Experts say that very often patients are not aware that until a kidney becomes available for transplant, dialysis can sustain them in the interim.

However, the high cost of dialysis has always been a frightening prospect for most patients, who also have to come to terms with the four-hour dialysis eating into their work hours, which, over a long period, could lead to loss of employment.

In the midst of all the indignation about commerce in kidneys, there is good news too. Dialysis has become much cheaper, and the number of dialysis centres in Bangalore run by private hospitals and charitable institutions has increased.

Bangalore has around 35 dialysis centres and the costs range from Rs. 500 to Rs. 2,000 for a session. With the Government-run Nephro-Urology Institute on the Victoria Hospital campus offering dialysis since mid-July, there is hope for patients from below the poverty line (BPL) families. Dialysis costs Rs. 500, but it is provided at half the cost to low-income groups and free to patients in the BPL category. August alone has seen 140 patients visiting the centre.

The financial burden on a post-transplant patient and a dialysis patient is roughly the same.

Director of the Nephro-Urology Institute G.K. Venkatesh sees in this an opportunity to explode myths surrounding kidney failure and renal transplants. The dialysis facilities in Victoria and Bowring hospitals will soon be moved to the Nephro-Urology Institute, which already has 20 machines. The district hospitals in Shimoga and Belgaum offer dialysis, and Dr. Venkatesh has plans to have satellite centres in all district hospitals, each with 15 to 20 machines.

“The institute will soon apply for a licence to perform kidney transplants, and we will only do related or cadaver transplants,” Dr. Venkatesh told The Hindu. This will be the first Government-run transplant centre.

Apart from giving poor patients access to affordable and even free dialysis, Dr. Venkatesh says the satellite centres will actively work for awareness and prevention of kidney failure and other diseases. “Failure to diagnose diabetes is the main cause of renal failure. All it takes is a simple urine test to know whether diabetes is taking its toll on the kidney. We hope to take this message to the rural areas, as renal failure does not discriminate between the rich and the poor,” Dr. Venkatesh said.

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