Kidney patients from Wangdue Phodrang and nearby districts requiring Hemodialysis services will no longer have to travel all the way to Thimphu hereon. The Wangdue Phodrang District Hospital is now equipped with two dialysis machines. The hospital will start providing dialysis services from tomorrow. The machines were formally launched today.
Hemodialysis is a procedure where a dialysis machine and a special filter called an artificial kidney, or a dialyzer, are used to clean the blood. The machines will benefit kidney patients who are suffering from endstage-renal kidney diseases and undergoing kidney dialysis.
“They are experiencing lots of inconveniences. For example, some of them have no relatives to stay within Thimphu. So, they drive either by themselves or driven by their family members to Thimphu twice a week, and then after dialysis, they have to come back again the same day. And they have been doing this twice a week which is really exhausting,” said Dr Tashi Wangdue, a Senior Physician at the Wangdue Phodrang Hospital.
He also says it is not good to travel a long distance after dialysis. The hospital has two trained dialysis nurses for rendering the services.
“So, now we are seeing endstage kidney patients in all the dzongkhag. However, dialysis facilities exist only in regional referral hospitals. So, Wangdue hospital is the first dzongkhag hospital that is equipped with this facility and I am sure it will benefit not only Wangdue Dzongkhag but Punakha, Gasa, Trongsa, and even Tsirang and Dagana. So, these patients will not have to travel all the way to Thimphu to avail themselves of this service,” he said.
However, the Dzongkhag Health Sector may have to standardise the structure for the dialysis service, as the current unit is functioning from a temporary room.
“Actually, it was a canteen. So, we have converted it to a temporary dialysis unit. It has lots of space but not really designed to be a dialysis unit. Dialysis unit should be designed just like any of the wards and cabins with wall oxygen, wall suctioning machine, etc. But anyway it is possible to start for now,” Dr Tashi added.
According to the hospital, the number of a dialysis machine is expected to increase up to six within a few years depending upon the turnout of patients.
The hospital also has an endoscopy facility already and with the launching of another new Pentax endoscopy machine today, it is expected to enhance the service further.
The government has spent Nu 11.4 M for the sets of these three machines.
Changa Dorji, Wandue Phodrang
