Fatimah (centre), flanked by Dr Cheong (second left), Saadiah (second right) and other representatives from the Health Ministry and an NGO, at the press conference.
KUCHING: The outcome of a two-day workshop on the proposal for Kidney Patients Assistance will be submitted to the Sarawak government for its consideration.
The aim of the Kidney Patients Assistance is to lessen the burden of kidney patients when seeking treatment at haemodialysis centres in the state.
Minister of Welfare, Community Wellbeing, Women, Family and Childhood Development, Dato Sri Fatimah Abdullah, said a few scenarios regarding kidney patients in Malaysia were brought up during the workshop.
“Where this sickness is concerned, we focus on the statistics, gender, age and what are the causes of kidney diseases.
“From here, we look at how many of our patients actually seek treatment,” Fatimah told a press conference after closing the workshop on Kidney Patients Assistance proposal at a hotel here, which was attended by 30 people from the ministry, hospitals and non-governmental organisations (NGOs).
She said, according to statistics from the Health Ministry for 2018, Sarawak has 3,317 kidney patients, out of which 2,920 seek dialysis treatment, 275 (Continuous Ambulatory Peritoneal Dialysis or CAPD) and 175 had undergone operation.
Currently, there are 45 haemodialysis centres in Sarawak – 25 of them operating under the Health Ministry where only minimal fee of RM13 is charged while 11 centres are run by private hospitals and nine by NGOs.
“Treatment is expensive, imagine a kidney patient has to go for dialysis three times a week. It is very expensive especially for patients who come from poor families from the rural areas.
“We hope when I present the paper from this workshop to the Cabinet in the next Cabinet meeting, the government will accept the proposal to lessen the cost for patients who cannot afford the treatment,” she said.
Other facilities that should be looked into at the haemodialysis centres, she added, are beds for patients, maintenance and new machines to replace old ones.
“We also look at the treatment cost in government and private hospitals and those run by NGOs … These are the important facts that were discussed in the workshop,” she said.
“We do receive applications from people asking aid for haemodialysis treatment, and the number of patients with kidney failure seeking haemodialysis treatment at government hospitals is large now,” she added.
She pointed out that out of 314 dialysis machines owned by the Health Ministry in Sarawak, 112 were eight years old, adding that private hospitals had 273 and NGOs had 30 dialysis machines.
“These old machines need to replaced with new ones and to get new ones costs about RM42,000 per unit.
“We welcome corporate bodies to sponsor dialysis machines,” she said.
Among those present at the workshop were head of Public Health, Ministry of Local Government and Housing, Dr Cheong Yaw Liang; Welfare, Community Wellbeing, Women, Family and Childhood Development Ministry permanent secretary Dr Saadiah Abdul Samad and representatives from the Health Ministry and NGOs.