Letter by Evelyn Yee, Penang, Sun2Surf.com, 8th April 2011
I WAS shocked to read about the closure of a haemodialysis centre in Simpang Empat, Penang.
Someone wrote to say that the Health Ministry disallowed such centres to function because they had no nephrologists.
The public knows that many patients cannot afford the financial costs of dialysis for life.
The government does not have enough haemodialysis machines to meet the rising number of renal failures. Hence these patients depend on the kindness of charitable and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) to help them.
Surely the least the ministry can do is to provide these centres with its nephrologists who can make weekly visits to the centres, similar to what is being done for district hospitals where there are no residential specialists of certain disciplines.
So for now, where can the patients from this "closed down" centre go? All the government dialysis centres are full, and other charitable dialysis centres are likely to be full too.
Does anyone have an answer?
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