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Life expectancy of dialysis patients can vary
– but transplantation can give more hope – Nephrologist
While there is hope for dialysis patients to live long and fulfilling lives, their existence can however be limited by the underlying disease that caused their kidney to fail in the first place as well as other diseases they may have.
This was the assertion of Head of Nephrology at the McMaster University in Toronto, Canada, Dr Alistair Ingram.
Dr Ingram, who was at the time speaking at a media briefing on Monday at the Doobay Renal/Medical Centre, East Coast Demerara, noted that although dialysis can almost always be offered to a patient, particularly through fistulas, such patients oftentimes die through problems related to their heart.
From Left: Dr Alistair Ingram and President of the Doobay Renal/Medical Centre, Dr Budhendra Doobay.
“Many of our dialysis patients have diabetes that is why they are on dialysis, and diabetes of course affects the arteries and the heart as well…so the most common cause of death in dialysis is what we cause sudden cardiac death,” said Dr Ingram.
He explained that some dialysis patients are known to suffer arrhythmia or heart attack while they are at home. He added that on average a diabetic patient starting dialysis will survive about six years.
However, he noted that younger patients in a similar situation are in fact likely to survive longer.
He said that non-diabetic patients on dialysis may survive even longer. “People with, for instance, polycystic kidney disease some have been on dialysis for over 30 years… so certainly you can survive for quite long periods of time,” assured the Nephrologist.
He nevertheless, noted that individuals who are eligible for renal (kidney) transplant could further improve their survival rate and by extension their quality of life could be prolonged. Such transplants require serious considerations in Guyana, he said.
He said that he was aware of transplantation here that have been provided intermittently on a private or semi-private basis.
“Obviously now that we have 40 dialysis patients, many of whom are young, we would like to see renal transplants started here…Obviously we would like to involve the Ministry of Health and the Georgetown Public Hospital.”
Moreover, Dr Ingram, whose visit comes as part of routine technical support to the Renal Centre, is hopeful to meet with Minister of Health, Dr Bheri Ramsaran, to discuss plans for further collaboration.
According to him, renal transplantation involves the identification of a donor, the actually operation and certainly long term follow-up of the patient who has been given a new lease on life with a new kidney.
“All of this must be done properly…the actual operation itself is properly the simple part, the identification of the donor and making sure that the donor is healthy enough to donate and the recipient is healthy enough to receive and the follow-up afterwards, those are the tricky parts and that is what needs to be in place,” asserted Dr Ingram.
“We need to do things right…we don’t just want to come down here and do a bunch of operations and have a bunch of transplants but that is something that we would really, really like to get into because it is heartbreaking to see a bunch of young people on dialysis…we don’t want them to stay on dialysis,” expressed Dr Ingram.
However, he noted that there is much work that must be done before such operations can be added to the services offered by the Doobay Centre which is currently looking to considerably expand its operations.
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