Summary
The Central West Renal Unit at Longreach Hospital this week celebrated its first birthday since opening in March last year.
The Central West Renal Unit at Longreach Hospital this week celebrated its first birthday since opening in March last year.
Since opening, the service has delivered 470 separate treatments (dialysis sessions).
The unit has four permanent patients but also offers dialysis sessions to visitors and travellers in the region who are clinically suitable for dialysis in a satellite unit and who would like to take advantage of the service while travelling in the region.
“As well as caring for our four permanent patients, we’ve been able to offer dialysis sessions to four holiday patients over the past year,’’ Central West Renal Unit Clinical Nurse Consultant Julie Martin said.
“We have another three visiting patients coming out in the next couple of months who have also
asked to do some dialysis sessions with us.
“People on haemodialysis must spend on average, five hours a day, three days per week connected to a haemodialysis machine.
“So, it’s very hard to go travelling anywhere unless you can be confident you can access your regular dialysis sessions while you are away from your home base.
“Having a dialysis unit here in Longreach means people don’t have to miss out coming out west for a holiday.’’
Ms Martin said the unit currently offered dialysis session from Mondays to Saturdays and had capacity to manage up to six patients each day.
The three-chair dialysis unit – the first of its kind in the Central West region – was part of a $10.867 million package of works at Longreach Hospital that also delivered major upgrades and expansions to the hospital’s pharmacy, pathology, and Allied Health units when completed in March last year.
What is dialysis?
Dialysis is the mechanical cleaning of the blood and removal of excess fluid from the body required to sustain life when the kidneys are no longer able to perform this function.
There are two types of dialysis: peritoneal dialysis and haemodialysis.
In peritoneal dialysis the blood is cleansed inside the body using one of the body’s own membranes, the peritoneum, as a filter.
In haemodialysis, blood travels outside the body through tubing to a filter on a dialysis machine to remove wastes, excess fluids and to balance the person’s blood chemistry before being returned to the body.
Key statistics:
1 in 10 Australians have signs of kidney disease. This increases to 1 in 5 for Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander people.
In Queensland, about 500,000 adults have indicators of chronic kidney disease.
90 per cent of kidney function can be lost without any symptoms – it is a silent disease.
Chronic kidney disease is common, harmful, treatable (if detected early) but often unnoticed.
The best way to find out if you have kidney disease is to undertake a Kidney Health Check, available from primary care providers.