KIDNEY TREATMENT UNDERWAY IN RIVERS STATE

The health-care revolution of the Chibuike Amaechi-led administration in Rivers State will soon be expanded to include treatment of kidney diseases as experts in that field of medicine from the United Kingdom will soon arrive the State for this purpose.

This was disclosed by a consultant on kidney treatment and a son of the State, Dr Ibiwari Erekosima, in a chat with newsmen in Port Harcourt. 

Dr Erekosima, a 1988 graduate of the University of Port Harcourt and foremost kidney consultant in the United Kingdom, works with Hope Hospital Teaching Hospitals, Manchester, UK.  

The kidney expert said, against the backdrop of the subsistent level of kidney services and the resolve of the present administration to develop health-care in the State, his group is set to collaborate with the State Government in providing treatment for those with kidney problems.

According to him, a multipronged approach aimed at checkmating the disease has become necessary “or else in the nearest future it will go into epidemic proportions, a situation where one in every five adults will have the disease”.

The medical expert explained that the aim is to create a care pathway which will include establishing renal clinics for detection of kidney damage, surveillance of progress of treatment, administration of dialysis and transplant of kidneys.

Regretting the dearth of relevant data on the disease, Dr Erekosima stated that hospital based studies indicate an epidemic proportion of increase in renal diseases and called on the government to subsidize the cost of dialysis for kidney patients, saying dialysis is not sustainable anywhere in the developing world because of poverty”.

Noting that the training of medical personnel is critical to the success of the kidney programme, Dr Erekosima said “it is not enough to buy machines, they have to be maintained and supported to be useful,” adding that “doctors will be trained to do transplant, and when we do these it will begin to have impact on those that have the disease”.

He described diabetes and hypertension as “the commonest cause of kidney disease worldwide,” and lamented the level of ignorance regarding kidney diseases, saying “when you create awareness then you can identify those with organ damage from diabetes and hypertension and organ damage of their kidneys.

The medical consultant condemned the habit of buying drugs off the counter and using herbal medicines, warning that “such could be toxic to their health” and urged the government to set up a viable data collection system which is critical to monitoring of reduction in incidence of kidney failures.