This week is 2023 Kidney Health Week, which aims to raise awareness about kidney disease in Australia.
According to Kidney Health Australia, 1.8 million Australians are unaware they are living with kidney disease.
Mount Gambier and Districts Hospital dialysis unit registered nurse Karen Lear said kidney disease was insidious and could progress a long way before symptoms showed.
“Often by the time people reach this stage, they will be very sick very quickly,” Ms Lear said.
“They do not notice it is happening in the background, there are no real signs or symptoms, it becomes quite bad.”
The Mount Gambier and Districts Hospital provides an outpatient dialysis treatment service and patients come through on a Monday, Wednesday and Friday or Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday.
Morning and afternoon treatment sessions are offered, with treatment time varying from three to five hours.
“Once you are here, it is either transplant, however not everyone is suitable for a transplant, and this is basically the only way to keep alive when you hit this point if you are not suitable for transplant,” Ms Lear said.
Nurse unit manager Jason Humphries said prevention was key when it came to kidney health, such as monitoring blood pressure, weight, and blood sugar, maintaining an active lifestyle, adequate nutrition, and regular GP appointments.
“Dialysis is really the end point of treatment, so you do not want to get to this stage,” Mr Humphries said.
The local dialysis unit started as a four-chair unit and expanded to six chairs in 2019 due to increasing activity and demand.
The 24-patient unit is almost at maximum capacity with 23 patients, the youngest 29 years old and the oldest 85 years, and the longest patient has been on dialysis for almost 15 years.
“Kidney disease can affect any age, there are young children on dialysis, so really the earlier you start living a healthy lifestyle is best, it does not really discriminate with age,” Ms Lear said.
Patients undergo treatment via haemodialysis machines, which clean the blood and remove toxin build up, return the blood, and remove excess fluid.
“It is quite a strenuous treatment for patients, because as you can imagine what our body is doing in a two-day process naturally, 24 hours a day, we bring them in and this machine is doing in three to five hours for them, cleansing and removing that fluid,” Ms Lear said.
“Some patients will take four litres of fluid off their body because that is what has built up over time.”
The unit services people throughout the region and Mr Humphries said a volunteer driving service through the community health team transports some patients to and from their treatment.
Patients are not limited to the hospital, as Ms Lear said some patients were also on peritoneal dialysis managing themselves at home.
“There are a lot of patients in the community who are being monitored closely; they have got varying stages of renal disease, but it has not got to the point where they need dialysis,” she said.
“We offer a regional support for peritoneal dialysis patients which saves them going to Adelaide.
“We have a couple of nurses trained in peritoneal dialysis and they can help those patients out with small issues or if they present to ED with a problem, they have got a bit of backup rather than having to travel.
“We have tried to keep country patients here locally as much as we can.
“When something is not working, that is when our patients have to go to Adelaide, because we are affiliated with the Royal Adelaide Hospital satellite unit.”
Ms Lear said it was important people had their kidney function checked regularly and said this was not always part of routine blood tests and encourages people to consult with their GP for a test.
