WESTERN MAIL Calls for action on kidney facilities

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WESTERN MAIL - 20 SEPTEMBER 2007

Calls for action on kidney facilities
Sep 20 2007
by Madeleine Brindley, Western Mail

PATIENTS are having to travel hundreds of miles a week to have life-saving treatment in shabby dialysis units.
In one major hospital patients with kidney failure are having dialysis – which can take up to three hours or more – in a portable cabin with just one radiator.
In another Welsh hospital an old storeroom is used as a makeshift “dialysis station” for two people – patients said the facilities are “unsafe and claustrophobic”.
The Kidney Wales Foundation today exposes the “third world” conditions patients are being treated in as evidence of the crisis in renal care. The charity, backed by the Welsh Kidney Patients Association, is launching a major campaign to improve treatment for the hundreds of patients with kidney failure.