Bengaluru: Foundation ensures the poor don’t miss dialysis in coronavirus times

BENGALURU: As the world fights a pandemic, kidney patients from Mumbai to Manhattan have lost lives due to lack of dialysis. In the state capital, Bangalore Kidney Foundation has come to the rescue of many patients struggling to avail renal care, especially the underprivileged, providing them everything from transport to free dialysis, PPE kits and nutrition. Even when the lockdown has been eased, the 41-year-old trust and one of the largest dialysis centres in the country, continues to serve those in need.
“We have about 300 dialysis patients and most are daily-wage workers or those below the poverty line. Every day, 120-130 patients come for treatment. When we first heard about Covid-19, there wasn’t an alarming drop in the number of patients. But once the lockdown was announced, it dipped by about 40%,” recalled Kartik Sriram, a BKF trustee.
With most of the other trustees aged above 60, Sriram, who is also a successful businessman with interests in the engineering industry, handed over the reins of his company to the Chief Finance Office to focus on critical renal care.
“The older people among the trustees would have been immunologically compromised if they had continued to show up. So almost overnight, most of the top management could not come into the centre. We then formed a team comprising administrative and medical staff to take stock of the situation, and decided to ensure no patient missed dialysis,” said the BITS Pilani graduate.
There was a sense of urgency in the team members because they knew the repercussions that would follow if the patients didn’t receive timely care. “Our priority was to ensure every single patient gets three dialysis sessions a week. If they don’t, their immunity gets compromised and they become extremely prone to Covid-19...Most of them live in clustered housing, and practising social or physical distancing is extremely tough. If one of them tests positive, the infection is likely to spread very quickly,” elaborated Sriram.
Five-pronged plan
The prime reasons for the dip in number of patients were loss of income and non-availability of public transport. Issues like diet, nutrition and hygiene also needed to be addressed. To tackle the multi-layered problem, the team came up with an inclusive plan.
“Typically, in Bengaluru, a dialysis session costs Rs 2,500-5,000. At BKF, we charge a maximum of Rs 750. We came up with a comprehensive renal care plan which covered five elements, including transport. The second problem was justifiable fear: We made sure our patients and healthcare workers wore appropriate PPE. Next was nutrition because even if we provided dialysis, if the patients did not have adequate nutrition, immunity levels would drop. Fourth was immune supplements. The fifth and most important issue was all our patients had no access to income. If we didn’t offer unconditional free dialysis to many of them, they would stop coming,” elaborated Kartik.
“For transport, we spoke to a few donors, borrowed cars and called an ambulance driver. We mapped our patients’ locations and scheduled their pick up and drop. For other elements, we raised money through the BKF Covid-19 fund,” said the trustee.