St George hospital starts dialysis facility for Covid-19 patients

The government-run St George Hospital has started a dialysis facility for Covid-19 patients.

The government-run St George Hospital has started a dialysis facility for Covid-19 patients.

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The Covid-19 converted hospital mostly receives critically-ill patients infected with the novel coronavirus - many with a history of acute kidney ailments and require dialysis every day. Doctors, as a result, referred them to other centres owing to the unavailability of the dialysis facility, which often delayed their treatment.

Taking note of it, the hospital has procured five dialysis machines and additional 10 will soon be acquired.

“One machine can conduct dialysis of six to eight patients daily. With our capacity, 30-40 patients can undergo dialysis every day,” said Dr Akash Khobragade, superintendent of the hospital. “We are in the process of getting more machines so that critical patients don’t have to run around.”

HT has been reporting on the difficulties faced by Covid-19 infected dialysis patients due to lack of facilities. At present, the dialysis facility for Covid-19 patients is available in Seven Hills, Kasturba Gandhi, King Edward Memorial, Nanavati and Saifee hospitals.

Dialysis is the process of removing excess water, solutes, and toxins from the blood in people whose kidneys can no longer perform these functions naturally. This is referred to as renal replacement therapy. Every alternate day, patients need to undergo dialysis, without this, a chronic kidney failure patient can even die.