Only three Municipal and District Assemblies have redeemed their pledges towards the establishment of a dialysis center in the Upper East Region. It would be recalled that at the launch of a fundraising ceremony towards the establishment of a dialysis center, the Upper East Regional Minister stated that all 15 Municipal and District Assemblies were to commit Ghc5,000 each towards the establishment of the facility.
Dr. Emmanuel Akatibo, the lead advocate for the establishment of the facility, speaking on A1 Radio’s Day Break Upper East Show, explained that it has become quite difficult to redeem some pledges, particularly those from Municipal and District Assemblies and other duty bearers.
The team in charge of advocating the establishment of a dialysis center at the Upper East Regional Hospital is still following up with persons and organizations that are yet to redeem their pledges in the region, outside the region, and outside the country.
“What we have is definitely not enough, but we do not want to keep waiting, so what we have, we will start with it. If we get more, we want it. There are those with whom we are still working, with the hope that we would get more. When we get more of the machines, then we can send in more people to train. Again, it gives us the opportunity to isolate some machines. Let’s say patient A has Hep. B, and patient B has Hep. C, you can dedicate a machine to each of them.”
“Most of what we are doing is follow-up on an individual basis. For us, we’ve spoken about the District Assemblies time without number. For those who have paid, we have received them; Bolga, Kassena-Nankana Municipal, Talensi. These are the ones that I know clearly in my mind that we received from them. The rest, we made follow-ups and we have not heard anything from them. For the rest, we hope that they would find a place to see this project as important to them so that they can contribute and be a part of it.”
“Sometimes, some of them feel you are bothering them,” he said.
Meanwhile, the Upper East Regional Dialysis, to be situated at the Upper East Regional Hospital, when finally launched, will provide two essential services, according to Dr. Emmanuel Akatibo, the lead advocate for the establishment of the center.
These services include acute dialysis services and services for patients with end-stage renal failure. Dr. Akatibo made these comments when he spoke to Mark Smith on A1 Radio’s Day Break Upper East Show on Monday, December 11, 2023.
“We will be providing acute dialysis services for those who have acute kidney injuries. For those people, when you treat them two or three times, you can take them off the machines, their kidneys will recover, and they can live their normal lives. We would also be providing services to those who have developed what we call end-stage kidney disease, meaning they have to be on dialysis for life or until they are able to get a kidney donor. Those are the services we are going to be providing,” he said.
Dr. Akatibo explained that it is currently difficult to determine the exact number of patients living in the Upper East Region who would need dialysis services. This is because all patients have been going to the Tamale Teaching Hospital to seek services and care, “others too, we lost them along the way.”
Source: A1Radioonline.com|101.1MHz|Mark Kwasi Ahumah Smith|Ghana
