Doctors at the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital (KATH) have lamented statistics indicating that approximately 30 children aged two to fourteen years with kidney disorders are left to die each year due to financial constraints.
An average of 150 kidney disorder patients are admitted per year to the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital’s Paediatric Nephrology Unit.
Health authorities also expressed worry about the exorbitant expense of managing kidney failure for the typical Ghanaian.
Owing to the high expense of health treatment, just a small percentage of the approximately 1000 outpatients that attend the paediatric nephrology unit per year return.
As a result, the doctors are asking the government to ensure that the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) covers End-Stage Kidney Disease care.
According to them, 25 children with End-Stage Kidney Disease (ESKD) die each year in Ghana due to a shortage of a paediatric hemodialysis unit combined with a lack of kidney transplant facilities.
In an interview, Dr. Animah Sarfo, a Paediatric Nephrologist at KATH, mentioned that the condition is not only alarming but also troubling since certain patients are left to their fate.
“Since the unit’s inception in 2014, we have collected data on end-stage renal disease that needs renal replacement therapy [dialysis or transplant] and discovered that, on average, 25 children come to our unit that need dialysis and transplant; sadly, there is no provision of a paediatric hemodialysis unit at KATH.”
“The nation also lacks transportation facilities. So, on average, 25 children a year are counseled to go home and suffer, or any of them die in the hospital. We will do peritoneal dialysis for acute cases, all that have a drastic decrease in renal function, and we have done that for 225 patients since 2012,” Dr. Animah Sarfo said.
She went on to say that these deaths could be avoided if the government included the care of those diseases on the National Health Insurance Scheme’s list of therapies.
“Our goal as a team is to support these children preserve their lives by persistent hemodialysis, which eventually contributes to transplant.” While the transplant is costly [with three months of medication], you would require about $40,000 to do that.”
These are among the several children whose parents and grandparents are unwilling to meet the financial commitments involved with their care.
Without some unique or supernatural guidance, these children would be among the 25 citizens who are told to return home and die each year.
Any parents who have children in different phases of kidney failure claim to be helpless.
As a result, they are pleading with the government for help.
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SOURCE: ATLFMONLINE
