Karnataka government has sanctioned Rs 7.5 crore to the Directorate of Health and Family Welfare to set up dialysis centres across the State. The directorate has gone ahead to identify the locations in eight district hospitals. These district hospitals are at Gulbarga, Karwar, Bijapur, Bagalkot, Chitradurga, Chikmagalur, Charmrajanagar and Bidar. To begin with, the centres are coming up in the existing hospitals' department of nephrology. But plans are underway to start the civil works for setting up dedicated units in the districts.

The amount of Rs 7.5 crore has been sanctioned from the State budget allocation for health which is Rs 1840 crore for the period 2009-2010. Under the phase-I, the directorate will commission the units in the existing hospitals to help patients to access the dialysis at the districts. Under the phase-II, the separate units will be coming up.

The eight centres will start its services by the end of the month, Dr. Prakash, joint director, Directorate of Health and Family Welfare told Pharmabiz.

The directorate has selected a team of doctors and technicians to handle the cases. The training to the team was imparted at the Nephro-Urology Institute at the Victoria Hospital in Bangalore under Dr G K Venketesh.

The Nephro-Urology Institute is the nodal agency for the eight dialysis centres. The patients will first have to come to Bangalore to get the condition diagnosed and dialysis could be accessed at any of the eight district hospital centres. So long these patients have been coming to Bangalore to under go dialysis. This has proved to be extremely expensive for patients below the poverty line among other cases coming from the villages. The Karnataka Institute of Nephro-Urology is accessed by around 150 patients a day and dialysis is carried out on 35 cases a day. The dialysis service is offered in two shifts which has around 18 dialysis machines. Around 4,500 people come to the facility for dialysis every month, stated Dr. Prakash.

The main objective of starting the satellite centres for dialysis is to reduce the burden of the patients on the Nephro-Urology Institute which is pressurized to cater to these cases. The new centres will now offer free treatment to those who are below the poverty line. Those patients who do not come under the BPL ambit will have expenses to the tune of Rs 350 to Rs 500 for each dialysis session.

There is an increasing number of cases of kidney disorders affecting one in nine cases. This is for the first time in the country such dedicated units re coming up as part of a government initiative stated doctors from BKF Kidney Foundation.

In January, K C General, a government hospital got a funding of Rs 55 lakh from Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) as part of a modernization plan where it is in the process of setting up an exclusive renal clinic to provide dialysis only to ease the monetary burden of the poor patients suffering from chronic kidney diseases.