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Naomi Lee

Self-service dialysis centres are to be launched to provide kidney patients with less-restrictive treatment schedules.

 The joint venture between the Hospital Authority and charitable organisations aims to prevent patients from losing jobs or being rejected for employment because they need daily sessions of peritoneal dialysis.

 In addition, the authority will be able to cut costs by offering haemodialysis, which requires two to three sessions a week, in the centres instead of in hospitals.

 Authority figures in February showed that patients being treated with haemodialysis had a better chance of employment, with 24.6 per cent of them holding a full-time job, compared with 15.5 per cent of those using peritoneal dialysis.

 Only 440 out of 2,620 renal patients in Hong Kong use the blood-cleaning haemodialysis technique compared with 88 per cent of all patients in the United States, where self-care centres are popular.

 The Hong Kong Society of Nephrology's chairman, Dr Matthew Tong Kwok-lung, said the self-care concept would allow the authority to cut manpower and let patients play a more active role in the process.

 The current cost of haemodialysis in hospitals is about $300,000 per patient per year, twice the amount for peritoneal dialysis.

 'It is hoped that more patients could benefit from the treatment, and therefore keep their jobs under the present economic climate,' Dr Tong said.

 'The patients can drop in at the centres before or after work. Each session would last about five hours,' he said.

 Dr Tong said the authority and the Hong Kong Kidney Health Foundation - founded last year with New World Development's boss, Cheng Kar-shing, as chairman - was working on the first centre.

 A Buddhist temple, the Chi Lin Nunnery in Diamond Hill, has been asked to rent out space for 90 patients.

 The start-up cost is expected to be co-funded by the authority and the foundation, with the annual costs of about $11 million a year covered by the Hong Kong Jockey Club.

 Dr Tong said charitable organisations would be approached to run more centres, which the Housing Authority is considering setting up in public estates.



Self-care dialysis centres offer patients hope of more freedom