Kidney Disease and Pandemic

 Kidney Disease  and Pandemic

A dialysis patient was stopped on his way to treatment center during MCO enforcement. After presenting his treatment consent letter , he  let to pass.The enforcer then remind,'  I give u an hour to settle and be back home urgently'...

The issues to the incident is about our level of unawareness on  kidney disease. Knowledge on the disease is still lacking .  A dialysis patiente normally diagnosed  chronic kidney disease or CKD which indicate they have reach the end stage of renal failure (ESRF). They urgently need to undergo Hemodialysis treatment (HD) by attending 3 sessions a week for 4 hours for each session the whole life. Medical finds that CKD patients would only able to live for about a month if direct discontinuation thedialysis  treatments.

Why covid 19 pandemic will be tough on kidney patients? A brief explanation about what really happen. Bodies get to function from what we eat drink through biochemical process called metabolism. It also creates metabolic waste like urea, uric acid and ammonia that must be eliminated from the body buy healthy kidney. Thus, arterial blood from the heart  flows to body pick up these toxins  and enter exretory system through renal artery that clean the blood. This process is   24/7 for 24 hrs and filtering our blood about 30 times.  Subsequently excretory  system filters out through urination. Additionally,  excretory system also regulate our blood preassure, activate vitamin D  for bone health and stimulate production of red blood. When kidney stop working well,our internal body go into imbalance and chaos. It start to effect the healths and morbidity of a person. Metabolic waste, excess water and extra minerals started to builds up   instead of being excreted.

Here dialysis take place to replace the function of the kidney to clear all the toxicated  fluids which fluctuate in the body. Prolong and delay of dislysis treatment will be severely detrimental to health of CKD patients.

Coming back to earlier question, why covid hit hard to those with CKD ? This is due to  inability of the patients to fight infections when the immune system is suppressed. They consider among high risk group of people with chronic condition, and may experience more serious covid 19 illness. CKD patient's blood are not perfectly clean of toxins. The treatment only provide small portion of the blood filtered and not by well fuctioning kidney.

Patients under dialysis  are urge to continue their treatment despite the pandemic. Issues happen when  some pstients were found to have a fever and they could not be dialized in immune compromised patient  setting. The ill CKD  patients must show up at hospital and required isolation that will add the overloading of hospital occupants.

Statistically , in  2019 ,  kidney diseases patients  amounting to 49,000  and had the increase rate of 7000 new cases per year. In year 2040 will see estimate of  106,000 of patient will undergo dialysis treatments. Capacity and capability are serious matter to ponder when the time come. This include the awareness and education of getting healthy kidneys.