The Ministry of Health has reportedly ceased an arrangement with a private medical facility which allowed kidney patients to get free dialysis treatment.
And as a result six critical patients who need the life-saving treatment, at least three times a week, are desperately seeking an alternative venue.
A spokesperson from Trinidad Dialysis Centre in San Fernando said the Ministry of Health External Patients Programme (EPP) effectively shut down its arrangement because of health hazards.
The majority of patients who had been seeking treatment there have been transferred to alternative centres but 10 to 12 others have not been assigned to any other centre to receive their treatment.
The company, which has been in operation for 22 years, confirmed that the Ministry of Health stopped the arrangement last Thursday.
“We do not know the real reason but the ministry has discontinued the programme almost overnight. If these patients do not dialyse by Tuesday (today) those patients could get really, really sick and by Wednesday, Thursday, they could die because those people who came to the media, they have not gotten dialysis since Thursday,” it added.
The spokeswoman said in the interest of the patients they have been liaising with the ministry, “trying to find out if they could inform us as to where they (patients) could go to get their next session and they (ministry) are telling us they don’t know, they will call the patients.
“Up to now (Monday evening) these patients are still waiting on calls from the ministry, so it is really a dire situation for them.”
The affected patients — Karon Morris Wright, Radresh Seedhan, Sumintra Soodeen, Sharon Henry, Sharon Sabessa and Bernadette Jobe — said they required dialysis three times a week.
Dialysis is a process for removing waste and excess water from the blood and is used primarily as an artificial replacement for lost kidney function in people with kidney failure.
Costly dialysis session
CEO of the South West Regional Health Authority (SWRHA) Anil Gosine said they operated 11 dialysis chairs at the San Fernando General Hospital (SFGH) between six to seven days a week.
He said they could not accommodate all the patients requiring that treatment so a number of them have been referred to private dialysis centres through the external patient programme of the ministry.
Gosine said one dialysis session costs approximately $1,000 privately.
The patients who spoke with the T&T Guardian said they each required three sessions a week which amounts to $3,000 for the period. Many of them are unemployed and can ill afford to have these sessions done privately.
Calls to Health Minister Terrence Deyalsingh were not answered.