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Jan 09, 2019 News
Even as Guyana battles to deal with soaring kidney failure cases, deliberate efforts are being made to help arrest its impact. Gearing to lend support in this regard has been the Doobay Medical and Research Centre situated at Annandale, East Coast Demerara.
The Centre has for a number of years been offering dialysis care to many kidney failure patients. However, according to officials there are moves to expand the level of service offered to include pre-transplant testing.
Officials there had touted the possibility of even offering transplant service with the blessings of Government.
Currently, kidney failure patients with voluntary donors are subjected to pre-transplant tests which are usually conducted for approximately $1M. Although the actual transplant surgery can be conducted locally at no cost to patients at the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation [GPHC], the pre-transplant tests are done in the United States.
But officials of the Annandale Medical and Research Centre have been in discussion with the Ministry of Public Health in hopes of being able to offer this very pre-transplant service to patients at a reduced cost. This is according to Dr. Azim Ganji, a Canada-based Nephrologist who is affiliated with the Medical and Research Centre
At a recent press conference he said that transplant is always the most feasible option for a patient suffering from kidney failure.
Moreover, Dr. Ganji revealed that the Doobay Medical and Research Centre, which has been offering dialysis services to kidney failure patients since opening its doors some years ago, is currently eyeing offering pre-transplants services with the support of the McMaster University Renal Unit, where he functions as a professor.
He said that while actual transplant surgery is one aspect of the transplantation process, another key area requiring keen attention relates to the success rate of these surgeries.
“We measure success by looking down the road and seeing how many patients have had a transplant and have had it without any complications.
“That is one of the major aspects and that is why we want to introduce a system in a safe and effective manner,” said Dr. Ganji as he detailed the importance of proper pre-transplant services.
It is expected that once granted permission by the Public Health Ministry, the Doobay Medical and Research Centre will be able to extract blood samples from both donors and recipients for transplant surgery after which these will be sent abroad to the McMaster University to facilitate a cross-matching test.
“Pre transplant testing is necessary because not everybody is suitable…We have to ensure that they are a good match and that takes a lot of high level testing. What we are going to do is send some of the samples to make sure they are tested there and so there is no additional cost associated with that,” said Dr. Ganji.
He alluded to the need to reduce the cost to patients as far as possible. “Our idea is to ensure that health care is always available in the country all the time,” he added stressing that the Medical Centre is a not for profit entity that therefore provides care to patients in a non-profit manner to Guyanese patients.
As such he said, “We have been working collaboratively with the Ministry of Public Health to ensure that they have an understanding of what we are doing because some of our ideas are novel. There are obviously competing issues that the Ministry will have to deal with but they are certainly open to us collaborating.”
Even as the Medical Centre looks to expand its services, Chairman of the institution, Dr. Budhendra Doobay, disclosed plans to expand dialysis services to Parika, East Bank Essequibo; New Amsterdam, Berbice and to Linden. This move, he noted, is tactical since “we are hoping to open dialysis units to treat people closer to home.”
It was just this notion that was conceptualised when the officials of the Medical Centre gave support to the introduction of the Dialysis Centre at the GPHC a few years ago.
“Our first model was at the GPHC where we provided the dialysis centre about four or five years ago. This was because we didn’t want patients who are very, very sick in Georgetown to have to come till to Annandale for dialysis…we wanted them to have dialysis right in Georgetown,” Dr. Doobay quipped.
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