Renal ailment patients rising; CV has few dialysis centers

TAGBILARAN CITY, Philippines – The number of patients with kidney diseases in Central Visayas has been rising, most of them female, but the region has only a few dialysis centers to attend to them, according to officials of the National Kidney Transplant Institute (NKTI).

The NKTI, during one of its nationwide campaign on renal disease, conducted in this city recently, said that of the dialysis patients in Central Visayas, 340 of them are females while 245 are males.

According to age bracket, the highest number of renal patients is 138, belonging to the 51-60 age bracket, 129 patients (aged 61-70), 63 (aged 31-40), 46 (aged 21-30), 25 (aged 71-80), and 11 (aged 11-20), NKTI said.

Despite this rising number, NKTI said Bohol province has only five dialysis centers to treat about 110 patients from among the 1.3 million population.

These centers are the Bohol Medical Care Center Inc.-Wanda Cadag; Borja Family Clinic, Gov. Celestino Gallares Memorial Hospital and Ramiro Community Hospital. The latest addition is the newly-installed dialysis machine in Cong. Simeon Toribio Memorial Hospital in Carmen town, a provincial government-run hospital.

The Central Visayas region is served by 220 hemo-dialysis machines in only 20 dialysis centers that serves a total of 585 patients with renal diseases. Siquijor province does not have a single center, said NKTI.

In Cebu, there are 12 dialysis centers: Asia Renal Care I, Asia Renal Care II, Cebu Doctors University Medical Center, Chong Hua Hospital, H. W. Miller Memorial Sanitarium, Nephrology Center of Cebu City Dialysis, Perpetual Succour Hospital, Sacred Heart Hospital, St. Vincent General Hospital, Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Hospital and Cebu South General Hospital.

In Negros Oriental, there are four: Dumaguete Doctors Medical Dialysis Center, Inc., Holy Child Hospital, Negros Oriental Provincial Hospital and Silliman Medical Center.

NKTI said kidney disease kills about 7,000 nationwide every year, making it the number nine killer of Filipinos. The common cause of the end-stage renal disease that needs dialysis treatment is what the NKTI called diabetic nephropathy, “a complication of diabetes mellitus.”

The second most common is hypertensive nephrosclerosis and the third is chronic glomerulunephritis (CGN),” based on the data of the Philippine Renal Disease Registry of the Renal Disease Control Program (REDCOP) of the NKTI and the Department of Health.

The experts advise the public to “have urinalysis every year” to prevent kidney or renal disease from occurring. ‘These diseases are potentially preventable if diagnosed early in the course of illness, avoiding the need for expensive renal replacement therapy such as dialysis and transplantation,” said NKTI consultant Dr. Susan Jorge.

With George, in disseminating information on renal disease were Dr. Reynaldo Lesaca, transplant psychiatrist; Dr. Benito Abraham, urology consultant; and Drs. Elmer Kent Lopez and Ariel Indo. (FREEMAN)