Indian state brings the kidney dialysis unit at your doorstep.

NEW DELHI: In a bid to reach out to patients requiring dialyses in rural India, Kerala, a state in Southern India, will launch a mobile dialysis unit initiative to help authorities reach the far flung nooks and corners.

“It is extending our palliative care efforts to a new direction. There are many poor people who have no money to go for continuous dialysis and are given no chance to live. This is an effort to provide the service free of cost to BPL patients in the panchayat (village limits) area,” said Rufus Daniel, a government official who is overseeing the launch of the vehicles.

Dialysis is often neglected by people who live too far from hospitals or who cannot afford to travel to the hospitals.

“Renal failure has been claiming many lives and there have been no interventions to give them a reprieve,” Rufus Daniel said.

India’s vast majority who live in rural areas have to rely on government health services which are often not up to the mark.

Each unit, outfitted in a van, will travel from village to village covering several patients who have been registered for dialysis, removing the need for the patients to travel to hospitals or where dialysis units are otherwise located.

Kerala is one of the more developed states of India that has good health indicators, like low infant mortality, high child sex ratio, as well as other indicators like high literacy. These moves by the government in collaboration with private trusts will only help take this further.

BM

Tags: dialysis, India

Section: Health, Latest News, South Asia

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