Saturday, July 18, 2009

Dialysis rationing in England

A post at the American Thinker Blog.

Rationing experimental procedures is one thing. But how about kidney dialysis? The following is from a comment left on my blog about health care reform. It is from a long time commenter on my site who quotes from the Canadian Medical Association Journal about the dialysis crisis  in the UK:
"An acute shortage of dialysis machines is causing numerous premature deaths in the UK, a study by the country's National Kidney Research Fund indicates. More than 100,000 people have kidney disease but only 34,000 are receiving dialysis or have had a kidney transplant.
Of the 71 UK kidney treatment units surveyed, 12 have been forced to turn away patients. Other units reported that they have been forced to take emergency measures to accommodate increasing numbers of patients. Some offer patients  dialysis only 2 times a week instead of 3, while others hold overnight treatment sessions. Most units reported they were working at full capacity, with no appointment times for new patients. "Some providers acknowledged that the final options for such patients are conservative management and/or death," the report said."

1 comment:

Unknown said...

This sounds like a classic free market situation. if the customer/patients want more dialysis they will demand/pay for it. i guess there is no demand for HD in the UK.
surely we don't want our corrupt government continuing with the wasteful dialysis program we have in the US. Now we have this inefficient government paying for all of these deadbeat "dialysis moms" driving caddies.