Buea Regional Hospital:

Panic grips Kidney patients as dialysis machines breakdown

By Boris Esono in Buea

Buea hemodialysis center

Kidney Patients undergoing routine dialysis at the Buea Regional Hospital Haemodialysis Centre have protested against the unconvincing nature of the treatment they receive. The kidney patients staged a demonstration on Tuesday, 16 May 2017 in front of the hospital protesting the non-performance of routine dialysis exercises on patients at the center.

                It should be noted that routine dialysis did not take place at the centre for several days running this despite the eight dialysis generators and the state-of-the-art 4008S dialysis machines acquired from the world’s leading dialysis firm, Fresenius Medical Care.

                “We want to make some noise so that Yaounde can listen to us because we have complained to authorities in Buea but nothing has changed. If they do not address the situation we are going to sleep in front of the Governor’s office and block the hospital,” said one of the kidney patients whose name we are withholding.

                 “There is no seriousness in the way we are treated here. Patients cannot continue to be treated like this. I was supposed to have been referred to some other centre, but that has not been done,” complained another patient.

                All our attempts to get to the Director of the Regional Hospital to comment on the development proved futile as he refused to talk, asking the journalists to go and write whatever they could.

                It shoud be recalled that last year the Buea dialysis centre was shut down for three days; from Monday, 7 March to Wednesday, 9 March 2016, due to the lack of the dialysis consummate and an acute water crisis.

                Dr. George EnowOrock, Director of the Regional Hospital Annex Buea on 9 September 2016 said seven of the eight dialysis machines at the BueaHaemodialysis Centre were bad and needed to be repaired or replaced.

                “The centre started with eight machines upon its inauguration in 2011 and these machines are programmed to carry out a limited number of dialysis sessions; about 6,000 sessions. But our machines have carried out between 8,000 and 10,000 sessions. The machines have therefore broken down. We have a technician who carries out preventive and corrective maintenance on these machines. And the technician has been doing quite a good job so far,” Enow-Orock said,

                Adding that “because the machines are broken down the patients waiting for dialysis have increased. So you can see that the pressure is quite high. And each machine can carry out only between 10 to 15 dialysis sessions per day”.

                On the cost of dialysis, Dr. EnowOrock said: “A session of dialysis costs FCFA 5,000 per patient. At the level of Cameroon, it is costly. Normally our patients are supposed to have three sessions per week, but they have only two because of the logistical insufficiencies. Actually, a dialysis session costs between FCFA 60,000 to FCFA 80,000. The state subsidizes the cost enormously.”

                Dialysis is an artificial procedure that takes up the natural functioning of the kidney(s) when they fail in the body. The kidney is the organ that cleanses the blood of waste products.

                The blood is pumped out, purified, and pumped back into the patient.

It is a very delicate, painstaking, and innovative procedure, according to medics.