City hospital to soon start cert course in dialysis

NAGPUR: A year-long certificate course in dialysis for technicians will soon be initiated by the new Dande Hospital in association with US-based Vivo Kidney Care. This course will help the technicians understand the science behind the process of dialysis while actually performing it.
The hospital, along with Vivo Kidney Care, also has plans to start a manufacturing unit for consumables and drugs used for dialysis.The manufacturing unit is likely to come up in Mihan in about two years.
Hospital director Dr Pinak Dande informed that the course will help create qualified dialysis technicians. “Technicians are in demand not only in private sector but also in government hospitals. We would be conducting the course in collaboration with Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU). The course will comprise six months of theory and six months of practical training,” he said.
To reduce the overall cost for the patient, Dr Dande said that the US-based company will manufacture consumables and drugs — like Heparin — locally.
Besides this, the hospital will also help poor patients by performing dialysis at subsidized rate or free of cost. This facility will be made available to patients coming only through NGOs.
“We expect a ‘patient adoption’ kind of concept in which the organization will adopt a patient for a year for free dialysis. “Sometimes, a patient needs to get dialysis done 10 to 12 times in a month which is a costly affair. In case of financial help from any organization, the patient is at ease,” Dr Dande explained.