There are approximately 2 lakh patients suffering from renal failure in Delhi who require dialysis every month,according to official figures. In contrast,only 27 dialysis machines function in the four government hospitals and six municipal hospitals in the Capital. With the private hospitals charging high amounts of money for the treatment,patients from financially backward families are left to suffer in the absence of adequate number of machines in government hospitals. When a patients kidneys fail,the dialysis machine steps in to periodically rid the body of harmful wastes. In cases of chronic renal failure,the patient completely depends on dialysis. It also works for accident victims whose kidneys temporarily stop working due to trauma. In serious cases,patients have to undergo eight hours of dialysis every two or three days. The lack of dialysis facility in public hospitals proves fatal at times. At private hospitals,a patient has to pay between Rs 1,800 and Rs 2,000 per sitting. Usually,patients with chronic renal failure undergo at least eight sittings a month,driving the costs up to Rs 16,000. Unlike this,in government hospitals,patients buy dialysis fluid for Rs 250. This fluid can be used for two sittings. For eight sittings of dialysis in a government hospital,a patient spends about Rs 1,000 every month. In the hospitals run by the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD),patients pay between Rs 3,000 and Rs 4,000 a month for consumables like intravenous fluids,medicines and disposable syringes. Services come free of cost. A sworn affidavit placed on record by the MCD before a Division Bench,led by Delhi High Court Chief Justice A P Shah on January 28,reveals that the civic agency has merely three machines operational,that too in Hindu Rao Hospital alone. A dialysis unit is functioning at Hindu Rao Hospital to give haemodialysis to patients admitted with renal failure. The unit has three machines,all in working condition, Madhu Jain,Director (Hospital Administration),MCD,states in the affidavit. The director is silent on the dialysis facilities in the remaining hospitals run by the agency,such as Swami Dayanand,Mahavir Valmiki,Kasturba and GLM. Jain furnishes details on the number of beds available in all six hospitals,with a passing mention of how patients who come to Swami Dayanand Hospital for dialysis are promptly referred to the adjacent Guru Teg Bahadur Hospital,which again has only seven dialysis machines. Jain,however,assures the court of the MCDs plan to purchase two more machines for Hindu Rao Hospital in 2008-2009. According to sources in the hospital,its dialysis unit runs from 9 am to 4 pm and treats at least 1,000 patients annually. We understand that the existing facilities are not meeting the demands. We have submitted a proposal to start a super-specialty department in nephrology, said Dr V K Monga,chairman of the Health Committee of MCD. Counsel for Delhi government,Rajeev Nanda,told the Bench that 24 machines were operational in four government hospitals,though he remained vague on whether these were enough to meet the demand. Lok Nayak Hospital leads the pack with 11 machines,which approximately caters to 30 dialysis cases a day. The hospital treated 14,000 patients last year,according to sources. Guru Teg Bahadur (GTB) Hospital follows with seven machines,Baba Saheb Ambedkar with four and Deen Dayal Upadhyaya (DDU) with only two. We are awaiting a proposal to upgrade the dialysis facilities in Lok Nayak Hospital and DDU. We also plan to add five more machines at GTB and another two at Ambedkar, Nanda submitted in the court. We are looking at expanding the facilities. Our hospitals face an ever-increasing patient load with people from satellite towns coming in as well. We plan to increase the number of machines and are collecting data from all hospitals on this, said Rashmi Krishnan,Additional Secretary,Delhi government. Hearing the case,the Chief Justice urged the government to expedite the process of procuring more machines,and offered the courts help by passing whatever directions necessary in this regard. The next hearing has been fixed for February 18.
