President opens Nephrology Institute

The 111-bed National Institute of Nephrology, Dialysis and Kidney Transplant at Maligawatte, Colombo will be opened by President Mahinda Rajapaksa today.

The new state-of-the-art institute is equipped with facilities for diagnosis of kidney diseases, dialysis and kidney transplant surgery.

When it is fully operational it will facilitate 100 transplant operations and 4,000 dialysis sessions a year. The total cost of the project was Rs. 450 million. During its initial stage the Institute will provide a Nephrology clinic and OPD, a 60 bed nephrology ward and dialysis unit with 10 machines.

The number of machines will be increased to 24 later.

Transplant surgery and other ward facilities will commence once the required staff and equipment are available.

The release said kidney disease has sprung into prominence in the last 10 years in Sri Lanka particularly with development of chronic kidney disease of unknown aetiology in the Northwestern, North Central and Uva Provinces.

In addition to this, diabetes, high blood pressure and kidney stones all contribute to the increasing burden of kidney disease causing chronic ill-health in society.

The annual incidence of new patients about 700 developing chronic renal failure each year is increasing.

With better education, communication, and promotion of good health, patient’s awareness has been increased and we see a trend towards more and more such patients coming for treatment.

The treatment of Chronic Renal Failure is either prolonged dialysis or transplantation.

Both are expensive and a patient usually needs dialysis three times a week for the rest of the patient’s life.

It is estimated that there are about 1000 patients who need advanced treatment such as dialysis and kidney transplant for their renal conditions in Sri Lanka, but only about 250 reach tertiary care hospitals.

This situation is mainly due to some of the patients not being diagnosed, leading to complications and death and others not having access to such specialized healthcare facilities.

The facilities to treat patients are currently available only in a few government centres.

In these hospitals, dialysis is performed only for acute renal failure. Patients with chronic renal failure have to seek treatment in the private sector for dialysis that is very expensive.