The Fatima Abubakar Dialysis Centre in Hadejia, Jigawa, says it has conducted dialysis on 129 patients with kidney diseases from 2018 to 2020.
Alhaji Abbas Muhammad, Chairman, Management Committee of the privately owned facility, disclosed this to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), in Hadejia, Jigawa.
He said the aim of dialysis was to remove impurities from the blood of patients suffering from renal impairment.
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Muhammad said each patient had undergone between one and three sessions of dialysis per week, adding that a session lasted for four hours.
“From January to March 2020, we performed 308 dialysis sessions on 54 patients,” he said.
The chairman said patients with moderate renal impairment were asked by their doctors to quit dialysis after one to three sessions, while those with severe conditions had maintained the treatment.
He attributed the rise in reported cases of kidney diseases in the area to drug abuse, drinking polluted water and the use of pesticides on crops.
Muhammad noted that the centre was established by a philanthropist in 2018, with the objective of bringing dialysis services closer to the victims of kidney disease in the area.
The chairman, however, identified the shortage of staff, high cost of consumables and fueling of generators, as some of the challenges faced by the centre.
“In 2019, we spent over N2 million on fueling and maintenance of our generators. This is too much, considering the paltry sum of N5, 000 we charge per session.
“Secondly, the workload at the centre is too much for the three nurses we currently have. Also, the high cost of consumables like acid concentrate, bicarbonate, dialyzer and heparin injection is also a serious challenge,” he said.
Muhammad, therefore, appealed to the state government to deploy at least three nurses trained in dialysis, to assist the centre.