The Hindu : Kerala / Thiruvananthapuram News : Support network for renal patients being revived

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Thursday, Mar 13, 2008
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Kerala - Thiruvananthapuram

Support network for renal patients being revived

C. Maya

Today is World Kidney Day
Network will help in post-transplant treatment

Thiruvananthapuram: The Department of Nephrology at the medical college hospital here is in the process of reviving the Transplant Patients’ Welfare Society, which had been set up eight years ago to help those patients who have undergone renal transplant surgery and who have to be on expensive immuno-suppressant drugs for life.

“Curative treatment for chronic or end-stage renal diseases is very expensive as the patient has to undergo either haemo dialysis for a lifetime or renal transplant surgery. For those undergoing the surgery, kidney transplant is only the beginning of the treatment; they have to spend nearly Rs.2 lakh in the first year for drugs. The welfare society went defunct because we could no longer mobilise funds,” points out Ramdas Pisharody, Head of Nephrology at MCH.

On March 13, World Kidney Day, while drawing attention to the need for encouraging primary care physicians to detect early signs of renal dysfunction in people through simple, routine tests, the focus should also be on the need for developing a community-network system for giving continued financial assistance to those on renal replacement therapy for a life-time supply of drugs, Dr. Pisharody said.

The Nephrology department at MCH recently organised a get-together of its patients who had successfully undergone transplant surgeries.

Almost all of them were at the mercy of voluntary donations or charity to find money for continuing their medication.

Heavy treatment cost

The cost of immuno-suppressant drugs for the first year is about Rs.15,000 per month, after which, it can be generally brought down to Rs.1,500 per month, but for life. For those leading a hand-to-mouth existence, this is an impossible situation because even government’s assistance for poor patients is just a one-time payment.

There are also individuals like Koyat Mathew George, who through donations from a church-based organisation and overseas sponsors, helps the renal patients at MCH regularly by supplying drugs.

But a permanent support network has to be in place for helping those with chronic kidney diseases because discontinuing the immuno-suppressant drugs for even three days could lead to the permanent rejection of the transplanted organ.

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