Kidney Patients Queue For Days To Use Dilapidate Dialysis Machine

Patients who need dialysis due to kidney complications queue to use very few and dilapidated dialysis machines at the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital.

Out of four categories of kidney patients, those who are said to be suffering both HIV and kidney complications are reportedly the worst off because the unit at Korle-Bu which takes care of such patients has only one dialysis machine which is also very temperamental due to wear and tear.

The single temperamental dialysis machine is the only working one out of three because the other two have broken down, according to reports.

According to reports, this single overused machine often breaks down in the middle of kidney cleansing procedures and because of the number of patients needing kidney cleansing, some patients have to wait in queue for days when it is undergoing servicing.

Kidney dialysis is the process of using a machine to do the work of the kidneys which are responsible for cleaning the blood of toxins produced by the body, mostly from food digestion.

Persons with very bad kidney disease find themselves in a situation where their kidneys cannot rid their bodies of the toxins and therefore need to rely on a dialysis machine.

Dialysis is extremely expensive in Ghana, with patients charged Ghc356 to spend half an hour on the machine for cleaning. There have been calls on the government to bring dialysis under the coverage of the NHIS, but the government has said it is very expensive.

 In addition to failing to make kidney dialysis free, the government has also failed to provide enough machines to serve paying clients at Korle-Bu.

Videos of the inner unit of the dialysis department of the Renal Unit of Korle-Bu have been trending on the internet as part of the story about the shocking dilapidation the few available machines have suffered. One of the videos shows three rusty machines, two of which are not in working condition while the third one which is working is in a state of mess. 

While a patient is on the machine, others remain in queues, reportedly, for days.