With almost no strength at all left in their frail bodies while undergoing dialysis at the Renal Dialysis Unit of the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital, some patients diagnosed with chronic kidney failures managed to share their pains with GhanaWeb.
Unlike other lethal diseases with a one-off treatment, chronic kidney failure may continually be the nemesis of patients suffering it, until their deaths.
The only known means of escaping chronic kidney failure, according to health experts, are either the option of a kidney transplant or permanent and consistent dialysis for the rest of a patient’s life.
But unfortunately in this part of the world, health officials have disclosed that the option of a transplant is almost always dismissed by family and friends of affected patients.
Their excuse of not donating a kidney to a suffering relative is always the same, “what if I also develop an issue, later on, I can’t risk it.” Due to this, several patients have had to rely on semiweekly dialysis which cost GHC325 per session in order to keep holding on to the string of life.
In an interaction with GhanaWeb on the basis of anonymity, some of these patients laid it all bare.
A 26-year-old student who was diagnosed with chronic kidney failure in his final year in school said he deferred his course as a means of paying more attention to his treatment.
Since then, he’s lost contact with several friends who believed he had become a financial burden to them. Luckily for him, he still has his job which earns him some income, all of which goes back into his treatment.
He said without rooted faith in God, one can barely survive the fight against the disease.
With severe breathing difficulty, he managed to tell the team that, “Every session is about GHC300 ($55). So anytime I come for a session I have to pay so that they do it for me. Before this disease, I was a student in my final year and till now I haven’t been able to go back to school. Before the sickness, we were doing certain things like going out with friends and all that but now we’ve lost contact with all of them…And one thing is with this sickness is, you can abide by what the doctors will tell you to do but if you’re not rooted in your faith as a Christian or a believer, you can easily give up…”
As though the woes of a kidney failure patient wasn’t enough, Anita Asare (not her real name) narrated while in severe pain after her dialysis that, after being diagnosed with kidney failure about two years ago, she has tried her absolute best to engage in normal everyday activities aimed at making her live a normal life again.
“I’ve been on dialysis for two and a half years now, it’s really expensive but we’re required to do it three times in a week and a session costs GHC325. Aside from that, our injections and medications are also equally expensive. It’s been a really huge financial burden on us. It has a negative effect on our jobs, so if your employers are not considerate, they’ll just lay you off. Personally, I try to get involved in everything and try to live as normal as possible…,” she ended with a smile of hope.
Mr Yaw Asamoah (not real name) also added that before his diagnosis he had virtually no idea about kidney diseases and its treatment. He said though his treatment is fairly good, the fact that he has to wait long hours before getting access to the dialysis machine, adds more frustration to what he already suffers.
He detailed his journey as follows, “Before I started my treatment, I didn’t even know anything about kidney failure and dialysis. Initially, when I started my dialysis I had gained an unhealthy weight but I lost it all. Now I believe the dialysis is a good thing but it’s a bit stressful when you come here. I came here yesterday, and now it is 11 am and I’m still here, it’s been more than 12 hours and I just started my dialysis which will take about 4 hours. When it happens like that, you’re always tired and frustrated by the time you get home. You can’t even go to work but ideally, we should be able to go back to work… Some people get sacked when they are diagnosed with the kidney failure but I thank God I still have my job and get my salary accordingly. It’s GHC325 ($59.47) per session and coming here twice in a week makes it GHC650 ($118.94 ), this becomes a huge amount in a month which is higher than my salary.”
To add to the challenges patients are facing, there are only about 15 dialysis machines at the Renal Unit of the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital, according to a Nephrology fellow, Dr Mendah Asamoah serving several patients.
What this means is that some unlucky patients wait for more than 12 to 24 hours to be treated.
Patients also appealed to government and other concerned stakeholders to at least expand the NHIS to cover part of their cost to help them fight their battles.
So, before you take one more gulp of your usual beer, eat the last bowl of that salty or overly spiced food, or even endure continual pressure and unhealthy habits, think about the harm you may be doing to your kidney and the dire consequences of not treating them right.
Neglect and ignorance, according to health experts, have never been an excuse.
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