Focus put on home treatment for dialysis dilemma
NORWICH – Two options currently exist for Chenango County’s approximately 45 patients in need of dialysis care: Traveling about an hour three times a week to a renal care center or beginning a relatively new home-based treatment.
With equipment and nephrologist services costing upwards of $1 million, the staff at United Health Services’ Chenango Memorial Hospital is focusing on the latter.
According to Dr. Drake M. Lamen, president of the Norwich-based hospital, experts have predicted that the majority of renal care will be performed at home within the next 10 to 20 years. “At a time when things are turning toward home treatments, our resources might better be spent educating the public in that regard,” Lamen said.
In response to letters to The Evening Sun that have lamented the lack of local services, hospital officials say they researched the feasibility of basing a renal care unit locally, but ultimately found the investment cost-prohibitive. Public Relations Director Gary Root said the small number of CMH’s dialysis patients - about 12 - doesn’t make the issue any less important, however. “We are doing whatever we can to provide home-treatment education,” he said.
Dialysis patient Edward J. Sidote of Norwich said a local unit has been needed “for years” in Chenango County and it is a “very, very expensive cost” to local taxpayers for transportation.
“I would like to see our Board of Supervisors put pressure on the hospital to establish dialysis services in Norwich. The demand is going to increase not decrease, in my opinion,” Sidote wrote in an Oct. 31 letter to the paper.
According to the Chenango County Department of Social Services, transporting dialysis patients via First Transit to renal care units in Binghamton, Oneonta and Cooperstown costs an average of $68.72 per trip. Transports from May to August totaled $7,000. The number of DSS clients differs each month from two to four, with two being transported currently. First Transit reports that 10 patients per week use the bus service.
Services will also soon be offered less than an hour away at Community Memorial Hospital in Hamilton. President David Felton said officials are working in conjunction with an unnamed hospital to implement a dialysis program there within the next 12 months.
The advantages of home hemodialysis and peritoneal dialysis are many, according to Elyn Sulger, nurse manager at the UHS Renal Care Center at Binghamton General Hospital. Home treatments require only one monthly trip to a renal care unit. In addition, patients have more freedom to decide when to do treatments as well as to travel without making arrangements weeks in advance.
“Home-based renal care allows more freedom of lifestyle. Patients can take the equipment with them when they travel and can have supplies shipped to their destination,” Sulger said.
CMH’s dialysis patients will soon be trained to receive home-based dialysis. Training lasts from three to six weeks. Sulger said one patient has already completed the training and is pleased with the new alternative.
CMH’s Lamen said the hospital hopes to place more emphasis on education about home dialysis options as well as prevention.
“The real bottom line on this is prevention. Most of these patients have diabetes and/or high blood pressure. That’s the most common reason that people get renal failure. Both of those are preventable with proper control over a period of time,” he said.
With equipment and nephrologist services costing upwards of $1 million, the staff at United Health Services’ Chenango Memorial Hospital is focusing on the latter.
According to Dr. Drake M. Lamen, president of the Norwich-based hospital, experts have predicted that the majority of renal care will be performed at home within the next 10 to 20 years. “At a time when things are turning toward home treatments, our resources might better be spent educating the public in that regard,” Lamen said.
In response to letters to The Evening Sun that have lamented the lack of local services, hospital officials say they researched the feasibility of basing a renal care unit locally, but ultimately found the investment cost-prohibitive. Public Relations Director Gary Root said the small number of CMH’s dialysis patients - about 12 - doesn’t make the issue any less important, however. “We are doing whatever we can to provide home-treatment education,” he said.
Dialysis patient Edward J. Sidote of Norwich said a local unit has been needed “for years” in Chenango County and it is a “very, very expensive cost” to local taxpayers for transportation.
“I would like to see our Board of Supervisors put pressure on the hospital to establish dialysis services in Norwich. The demand is going to increase not decrease, in my opinion,” Sidote wrote in an Oct. 31 letter to the paper.
According to the Chenango County Department of Social Services, transporting dialysis patients via First Transit to renal care units in Binghamton, Oneonta and Cooperstown costs an average of $68.72 per trip. Transports from May to August totaled $7,000. The number of DSS clients differs each month from two to four, with two being transported currently. First Transit reports that 10 patients per week use the bus service.
Services will also soon be offered less than an hour away at Community Memorial Hospital in Hamilton. President David Felton said officials are working in conjunction with an unnamed hospital to implement a dialysis program there within the next 12 months.
The advantages of home hemodialysis and peritoneal dialysis are many, according to Elyn Sulger, nurse manager at the UHS Renal Care Center at Binghamton General Hospital. Home treatments require only one monthly trip to a renal care unit. In addition, patients have more freedom to decide when to do treatments as well as to travel without making arrangements weeks in advance.
“Home-based renal care allows more freedom of lifestyle. Patients can take the equipment with them when they travel and can have supplies shipped to their destination,” Sulger said.
CMH’s dialysis patients will soon be trained to receive home-based dialysis. Training lasts from three to six weeks. Sulger said one patient has already completed the training and is pleased with the new alternative.
CMH’s Lamen said the hospital hopes to place more emphasis on education about home dialysis options as well as prevention.
“The real bottom line on this is prevention. Most of these patients have diabetes and/or high blood pressure. That’s the most common reason that people get renal failure. Both of those are preventable with proper control over a period of time,” he said.
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