The Hyderabad Kidney Foundation organized a patient support group meeting this evening at NephroPlus' East Marredpally branch. All of two people showed up. One of them was a transplant recipient. The only dialysis patient who came, came at 6 p.m., a full hour behind schedule and I suspect he came to get a missed Erythropoietin shot.

I honestly did not expect to get a huge a crowd. I expected around 10 - 15 people to come. So, I was way off. I probably misjudged the patients.

Here is how a hemodialysis patient probably thinks: "The three times that I need to go to a (expletive) hospital are the three worst times of my (expletive) week. And you want me to come on my day off to a (expletive) hospital!"

So, the patients are probably going to do everything they can to stay away from anything remotely resembling a hospital - let alone a standalone dialysis center! Hemodialysis also drains many of them out so completely that they barely have the energy to do anything. If they actually have energy left, why would they make an effort to go for a boring support group meeting?

We had informed a few PD folks too to come. The sole reason PD folks do PD are that they don't want anything to do with HD. Most PD patients are leading totally normal lives anyway. So they don't really need any support. So, why would they come for the meeting?

Where does that leave the support group initiative? Search me!