Renal patients encouraged to use available dialysis services

04/06/2010 | Renal Dialysis Services

There is currently a lot of interest around dialysis services and how they can be provided.

Dialysis is a way of removing waste products from the blood when your kidneys aren’t working properly. There are two types of dialysis - haemodialysis and peritoneal dialysis.

Haemodialysis is when the blood is taken outside of the body using a machine and passed through an artificial dialyser (a plastic tube filled with hollow fibres). This is performed three times each week for 4-6 hours in a dialysis unit or the patient’s home. Haemodialysis uses 250-300 litres of water for each treatment.

Peritoneal dialysis involves instilling a sugar-based fluid through a catheter implanted into the abdomen and using the abdominal lining, peritoneum, to clean the blood. The 2-2.5 litres of fluid is exchanged 4-5 times daily, or overnight using a machine to monitor the amount instilled and drained.

Around $6,500,000 is spent on dialysis services in MidCentral DHB’s district each year. Services are provided through Palmerston North Hospital’s acute renal service, the self-managed service, and home dialysis services for suitable patients.

With rising obesity and diabetes rates, demand for dialysis is expected to grow.  MidCentral, together with the four other DHBs in the central region, are looking at options for the treatment of kidney patients into the future on a regional basis.

A local community group has recommended a mobile caravan for haemodialysis for patients around the region.  For this to be a viable option in the future, it would need to meet strict clinical safety criteria.  Dialysis services have to meet the Ministry of Health specifications for the provision of a service from a hospital.

They included such things as: adequately trained dialysis staff; the requirement to have at least 300 litres of specially treated water to be available for each dialysis patient, plus connections to sewage waste systems to take waste water (1200l for up to four patients at a time); provision of “clean” and “dirty” areas; capabilities for machines to be disinfected for half an hour between patient use; the availability of a spare machine in case of mechanical failure; a specialist medical power supply; and abilities to clean down patient chairs, and trolleys for equipment, between use. Standards needed would be similar to those required from the Surgical Services Bus.

The service must also be sustainable as patients must have this treatment regularly to prevent the development of complications requiring hospital admission.

MidCentral DHB encourages anyone interested in setting up dialysis services to make sure their business case meets national standards before embarking on fund raising.

Contact: Communications Unit (06) 350-8945.