Safdarjung hospital launches new haemodialysis centre for better dialysis

New Delhi: Bringing good news to patients suffering from kidney-related ailments, a new state-of-the-art haemodialysis unit has been launched at its super-specialty block of the largest central government hospital in India, Safdarjung Hospital. This will be the first central government facility in the capital to be equipped with online hemodiafiltration (HDF) machines for dialysis.

Hemodialysis is a treatment to filter wastes and water from the blood, as the kidneys did when they were healthy. Therefore, the machine will filter the blood through a dialyzer, also known as an artificial kidney, with built-in safety checks to be sure the process is safe and effective.

The facility was inaugurated on Wednesday. So far, the hospital has two HDF machines which could increase based on demand. The facility will also be available to patients under the Central Government Health Scheme (CGHS).

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Although private hospitals charge high rates for this dialysis, Safdarjung Hospital will offer it for free. In fact, the patients will also get the same services as those provided at the private hospital. The introduction of this facility at the hospital will help in expanding the kidney transplant programme.

The time limit for dialysis in the hospital has also been extended. Earlier the dialysis, which used to take place from 9 am - 4 pm in the evening, will now take place till 8 pm at the night. Apart from this, there will be six OPDs in a week for kidney patients. Earlier their number was four.

Explaining more about the facility, Dr Himanshu Verma, head of the department of nephrology and renal transplant at the hospital said “The new haemodialysis unit was running on a pilot for the last few months to test the effectiveness of the machines and it was formally inaugurated on Wednesday. This new unit will ensure that an advanced dialysis technique—haemodiafiltration—is available to patients from economically weaker backgrounds free of cost.”

“If you go to a private hospital, the average cost of this therapy is around ₹5,000-6,000 and here patients will be getting this service free of cost. HDF is a more advanced technique of filtration of impurities from the body, which not only improves a patient’s quality of life but also increases the life expectancy among patients,” Dr Verma told HT.

Claiming that the highest quality of water is used for the dialysis of the patients, Dr Varma said, “We have ensured that ultra-pure water is used in these machines by installing the highest quality RO plant. The better the quality of water, the output of the process will also be good.”

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