Doobay Renal Centre still awaits MoU with Govt. to reduce dialysis cost

Feb 26, 2013 News

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A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) is yet to be signed in order for renal failure patients to continue to benefit from the reduced cost of dialysis offered at the Doobay Renal Centre Inc.
This is according to founder of the not for profit organisation, Dr Budhendranauth Doobay, who said that “Government is supposed to sign an MOU so that we can keep our dialysis cost at $9,000. For whatever reason it has not been signed and we are not getting any assistance.”
The Renal Centre located at Annandale, East Coast Demerara, is arguably the only privately operated facility in the country that offers dialysis at the reduced cost of $9,000 with a vision to further reducing it.
This further reduction, according to Dr Doobay, could only be realised through the proposed MoU. He noted that “if we do not get that assistance then we cannot even keep it at $9,000. We will have to go higher; we would not like to do it because some of our patients cannot even afford to pay this amount. I personally would like to see we don’t even charge $9,000 but way below that,” insisted Dr Doobay.
Dr Doobay is a Canada-based Vascular Surgeon, who migrated there several years ago and as part of his efforts to give back to Guyana, founded the renal care centre.
At the moment there are some 40 renal failure patients accessing treatment at the Centre. And since the operation is not to make a profit, Dr Doobay said that “we don’t take one cent from the funds…we pay our own expenses to come here, we pay to stay here every time we come here.”
Dr Doobay has been travelling to Guyana on a regular basis with other medical professionals from the McMaster Medical Centre in Canada, who according to him, “pay their own expenses when they come here to help us out with these patients.”
Alluding to his belief that the genuine efforts made to ensure that patients gain only the highest quality care is often undermined, Dr Doobay said, “We are blocked at every place…”
He however disclosed that there are plans apace to expand the operations of the facility and it was expected that this expansion would be done in collaboration with the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC).
Already the procedure of Arteriovenous (AV) fistula is offered to patients free of cost to allow for improved dialysis. In a matter of months free kidney transplants are expected to commence too, Dr Doobay related.
The AV Fistula procedure commenced last year but according to Dr Doobay access to the public facility is not always forthcoming since “for us to go to the GPHC we have to wait till 4 o’clock in the afternoon and it is so much of trouble to get in there…They do allow us from time to time but there is so much red tape.”
He said that moves were made to set-up a temporary operating room at the East Coast facility and a number of patients were operated on last week.
Dr Doobay disclosed that when he first started offering the added renal care service he was asked by the Minister of Health, Dr Bheri Ramsaran, to utilise the West Demerara Regional Hospital and a few operations were done.
However, he noted that even fewer patients were attended to there. “We can only do one or two there so we decided to rig up an operating room and do our thing here.”
This warranted that instruments be brought in and even that was no easy task, said Dr Doobay. He recalled that although all of the instruments were acquired through donations no tax exemptions were allowed by Customs Officers upon entry at the Cheddi Jagan International Airport.
He claims he was made to pay some $54,000 for instruments valued at approximately US$400.
“I told the Customs Officer if he could come and see what we are doing and if after that he thinks we should pay the tax we will pay…These people weren’t even nice they were acting as if we were intruding,” complained Dr Doobay.
“I said, look at all these lines, we got them for free; there is no cost…but a Customs Officer was still asking me for a rough cost…”said Dr Doobay.  The ordeal occurred around 10:00 hours on a day that operations were planned for a number of patients at 14:00 hours.
“I thought, let me just pay this money because what is $54,000 to our patients’ lives…so I paid it and myself and my colleague Dr Gafoor, who is a surgeon like myself, we came in and we did the operations.”
Once subsidies are made available particularly for items, such as filters and lines, to facilitate the ongoing dialysis treatment, Dr Doobay is optimistic that the service which is offered at $9,000 per session could be greatly reduced.
“This is what I am hoping for; this is my objective…but at the moment we are begging for money in Canada and we are begging for money here; that is the only way we can do it right now…”
As part of the proposed collaborative effort between Doobay Renal Centre and the GPHC, Dr Doobay said that there was a decision to have the doctors of the Public Hospital be exposed to the procedures.
“I told GPHC to send their doctors and we would teach them but they come and then they don’t come…they come whenever they want…”
It is his hope that government will make available subsidies to ensure an expanded facility to the Guyanese populace.
In its attempt to bolster the relationship between the two entities the Vascular Surgeon disclosed that four (dialysis) machines were donated to the GPHC which allowed for the commencement of a dialysis clinic there.

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