KC General, a government hospital in Bangalore, has received Rs 55 lakh from Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) for modernization of the hospital. In the first phase, the hospital will set up a dedicated renal clinic to provide dialysis. This facility is expected to ease the monetary burden of the poor patients suffering from chronic kidney diseases.

Nephrology services and dialysis in particular are an integral part of hospital care. Going by the increasing number of people who are being affected by kidney diseases and failures, the Hospital will charge payment for the patients to carry out the procedure but the cost will be much less compared to the private hospitals. The huge recurring cost prevents KC General Hospital from making the dialysis process free of cost. Therefore, the Hospital has been advised by BBMP to charge a fee for the dialysis, stated Dr. M Vishwaradhya, medical superintend, KC General Hospital.

BBMP has provided the fee for the dialysis units about a year ago and orders have been placed for the water purification plant. Tenders have been floated and applications are being currently screened. The units are coming from Germany and each unit cost around Rs 5.75 lakh. The water purification plant will be constructed on the top of the hospital building, stated Dr Vishwaradhya.

The new unit will now help the patients with renal failure. Currently, the only other government facility which has a Nephrology unit offering dialysis is the Victoria Hospital. KC General will now be able to share the burden of patients which were accessing Victoria Hospital.

According to Dr Gokulnath, professor and head, department of Nephrology, St John's Medical College and Hospital, dedicated departments offering dialysis and transplant are only located in the cities. In Karnataka, there are many hospitals offering the two services and St. John's Medical College Hospital has the largest dialysis facility of 29 beds among missionary medical centres in the state. While Mangalore has three centres, the rest all are located at Mysore, Belgaum, Hubli and Davangere. At least 23 out of 29 districts have no facility.

With the incidence of chronic kidney disorders growing which affects one out of nine people in the country, there is lack of nephrology care centres and also shortage of nephrologists. Currently, India has only 800 nephrologists who treat one lakh new chronic kidney disorders. In the US, which has one third of the India's population has five times more nephrologists.

There is also the emergence of conditions like Glomerulonephritis which is a type of kidney disease affecting the glomeruli, which are small structures in the kidneys that supply blood flow. There are also increasing number of cases reporting infection and kidney stones which are beginning to prove difficult to treat. This is because of serious shortage of specialists and lack of awareness among patients to come in for early treatment, stated doctors from KC General Hospital.