Kidney patients face hardship as only one of 10 dialysis units is operational at Udupi District Government Hospital

MANGALURU Patients who visited the District Government Hospital in Udupi for dialysis faced hardship as only one of the 10 dialysis machines functioned at the hospital on Thursday, September 21.

Patients who visited the District Government Hospital in Udupi for dialysis faced hardship as only one of the 10 dialysis machines functioned at the hospital on Thursday, September 21.

When Udupi MLA Yashpal Suvarana visited the hospital the authorities told him that three of the 10 machines functioned till Wednesday, September 20. Of them, two developed snag and stopped functioning on Thursday. The remaining machines had stopped functioning some time ago. It was due to no maintenance as the government had given the contract of maintenance of machines to a Kolkatta-based company dealing with medical care. The government has not paid the maintenance fee to the company for a few months now. Hence the hospital has been forced to reduce the dialysis procedure from about 22 to 25 a day to only six.

The MLA told presspersons later that he instructed the hospital to prepare a list of such patients who underwent dialysis at the hospital at regular intervals and get them treated at private hospitals such as TMA Pai Hospital and Adarsha Hospital at reduced cost. The patients of Udupi city can be treated during the night while those from faraway places could be treated during the day. Staff of the government hospital should accompany the patients to the private hospitals while getting them treated, he said.

Mr. Suvarna said he and his friends would bear the cost of treatment at private hospitals for the time being as the two hospitals have been convinced to offer the treatment to patients to be sent by the district government hospital. The government should address the issue at the district hospital at the earliest.

“The Congress government led by Siddaramaiah is now offering a guarantee of pain to kidney patients freely,” Mr. Suvarna said.

If the government did not address this issue within a fortnight, the BJP would launch an agitation, he said.