THE Health Ministry is moving to reduce outsourcing of services to private facilities such as dialysis, but one dialysis patient says this cannot happen any time soon because there is currently no place available for new patients in public hospitals.
“No matter what Government does, they have to give people dialysis and even send them to private facilities. The hospitals are full…there is no room to take on anybody else. All the talk they talk, nobody could pay for dialysis without insurance,” said Innis Toussaint, 55, who has been having dialysis treatments locally and abroad since 1991. He is receiving dialysis from St Clair Medical.
He said it can cost $1,300 per session for dialysis and such rates could exhaust someone’s medical plan. He said more and more people are in need of dialysis due to kidney failure caused by high blood pressure and diabetes.
Two public sector dialysis centres — one at the Eric Williams Medical Sciences Complex, Mt Hope and another at San Fernando General Hospital, are to be established. Toussaint said until this happens, private facilities are needed.He said the service provided in the public sector requires improvement. Speaking of the experience of patients attending EWMSC, Toussaint said patients are having difficulty getting access lines put in (at the arm, thigh, neck, groin) for dialysis because the unit did not have a vascular surgeon assigned to do this. “A dialysis patient’s life is through the access line,” he said. The “lack of care” shown by medical personnel dealing with dialysis patients is another grouse for the Laventille resident.
For 2012, 210 patients received dialysis treatment at subsidised rates from the John Hayes Memorial Kidney Foundation, Healthnet, Community Hospital and Kavanagh Dialysis Centre. A total of 17,529 dialysis sessions were done at a cost of $23.6 million. A budget of $16 million was allocated for 2012-2013.
Health Minister Dr Fuad said the outsourcing of renal dialysis was growing “beyond bounds” and centres are cropping up “like parlours” all over the country.
He said more money would be put into the public sector dialysis system and less for private facilities.
The pre-paid system in which money is paid in advance for patients was being audited to see if they were still receiving treatment or if any had died.
Khan said patients were required to provide their signatures after receiving dialysis.
A spokesperson for the John Hayes Foundation said between five and eight patients were sent for dialysis from the public health sector.
The ministry paid for 12 treatments monthly at a cost of $780 per session for each patient. Contacted for comment about the minister’s statement, the Kavanagh facility said “we don’t have any government patients at all.”
