State-run dialysis centres continue to remain in short supply in Telangana. While four teaching hospitals in Hyderabad, Nizamabad, Mahabubnagar and Warangal are equipped with dialysis machines, the rest of the six districts do not have free dialysis facilities for poor chronic kidney patients.
Each of the existing government dialysis centres, started in November 2009, have been successfully providing dialysis facilities to 200 kidney patients on a monthly basis. The then Andhra Pradesh Government had entered into a MoU with German medical company B. Braun to set up over 100 dialysis machines in the State. The German pharmaceutical had undertaken to manage the dialysis machines for a period of seven years.
According to senior doctors, there is a need to increase dialysis services. “There is definitely a need to increase the dialysis machines. The existing dialysis centres, however, are doing well. In fact, the patient compliance is very good and even hepatitis C infection is very less among patients in the State-run dialysis centres,” says Professor, Nephrology, Gandhi Hospital, Pradeep Deshpande.
The State-run dialysis centres have exclusive machines only for hepatitis C infected kidney patients, which separates them from normal patients. Typically, each of the four State-run hospitals in Telangana receives an average of 20 new cases of patients needing long-term dialysis management for their kidney ailments. This creates a lot of pressure on existing dialysis machines.
Another challenge that has continued to remain for health authorities is the availability of erythropoietin, which is mandatory for dialysis patients. A majority of the patients with end stage kidney ailments are anaemic and they need erythropoietin drug. Dialysis patients point out that the erythropoietin is not always available at teaching hospitals where dialysis facilities are there.
