Have you heard about the rebranding of the NxStage machine to nix-stage – apparently in light of the fact that is the amount of dialysis I will be doing over the weekend on this machine here – NIX!
I had the drama of having to change out the control unit in the middle of the night earlier this week, finally getting to bed at just after 4am after the new unit arrived by courier at 2:30am.
Now this one has failed, as it will not pass conductivity test – the unit had been returned ‘to stock’ from the Portsmouth renal unit, and when I got it (‘tested’ according to the associated fault paperwork! [unbelievable] ) it told me it needed servicing in two days otherwise it would stop working. I was sent a ‘service kit’ but the machine failed on 4 occasions. Maybe that’s why Portsmouth sent it back – go figure!
So I can either have another control unit delivered and be up till all hours again, or I can wait till Monday. I did ask that somebody be sent out to fit the unit – but it’s a weekend and nobody works. I won’t now repeat my true thoughts on that subject – blog will get banned for blasphemy!
Well, tomorrow afternoon/evening I will be dialysing back on the unit in Peterborough. (Progress eh!) I’ve been home with the NxStage for less than 3 weeks and it has been a catalogue of faults and problems. Not at all impressive.
So, the machine (and Kimal, and NxStage) are on notice, this machine will be on the street in very short order if it fails again after the fix they will now do for me (with an engineer it seems) on Monday. I did try to speak to Mark Pettitt, Managing Director of Kimal, or Alan Press the CEO – but no surprise, nobody knows their numbers and once we hit the magic 5:15pm – all lines to Kimal are met with “we are now closed”. And Leicester are no better – I phoned to speak to the Renal techs, and there was no answer, just a blank line – and I did not relish calling back again given I would need to listen to inane drivel about how clean Leicester hospitals are and that you stand less chance of getting an infection. (LESS? Surely it should be NONE!) (oh, and of course, how important my call is to them……).
So tonight I am being a grumpy old bugger, but given what I have had to put up with in the past couple of weeks with NIXSTAGE, then I feel justified!!
Off for a drive on the motorway so I can have a go at somebody driving in the middle lane, on the phone, smoking a fag…… (quite a few in Peterborough)
UPDATE: 19:05 Friday evening
The specialist nurse who does the training and is on-call for help is now going to be with me at 7am on Monday to get things moving. Does he do everything? Hope he gets a substantial pay rise this year! A leaf could be taken from his book and emulated elsewhere.
