Specialist doctors in Greater Western Sydney say they are being forced to provide dialysis “at levels seen in the developing world” due to poor resourcing.
Forty-five specialist doctors from Western Sydney, South West Sydney and the Nepean Blue Mountains local health districts (LHDs) have signed a letter to the state’s health minister.
The letter warns patients suffering kidney failure may die while waiting for treatment.
Lukas Kairaitis is the head of the renal department at Blacktown Hospital and spoke to the ABC in his capacity as chair of the Blacktown-Mt Druitt Hospital Medical Staff Council.
Dr Kairaitis said the provision of dialysis in many cases was comparable to that in developing countries.
“When you shorten the number of treatments per week, or the number of hours per treatment, you’re compromising the one major determinant of that patient’s survival,” he said.
“Patient wellbeing is significantly impacted when you provide just the bare minimum, or not even that.”
The renal physician said he’d seen a rapid growth in demand for dialysis while services in western Sydney struggled.
“We’re talking about a fairly disadvantaged group of people who have a chronic organ failure, which is kidney failure.”
In the two-page letter, the group demanded urgent action from the state government.
“Public facilities across the three LHDs do not have enough capacity and resources to provide basic haemodialysis treatments to patients who need them to stay alive,” the letter reads.
It claims 52 out of 127 dialysis patients were receiving shorter-than-recommended treatment due to lack of capacity.
“In addition to the physical and emotional toll on their families, this shortage is causing immense stress on healthcare providers who are committed to saving lives but are hindered by resource constraints.”
One in six Australian dialysis patients located in Greater Western Sydney
According to the letter, one in six dialysis patients in Australia are receiving treatment in western and south-west Sydney, with the area also seeing the “highest and most relentless growth in dialysis patents compared to any other state LHDs”.
Rates of diabetes in Greater Western Sydney have long been recorded as higher than the state’s average, according to government data.
These figures are associated with a number of factors, including genetics as well as food insecurity.
Public health services within Greater Western Sydney have also historically been underfunded.
“The crisis has developed on the back of years of underinvestment in dialysis infrastructure and resources in our three LHDs,” the letter stated.
NSW Health Minister Ryan Park said private healthcare providers could be used to meet the demand.
“I want to try and meet with the clinicians and see, through New South Wales Health, how we can optimise our shift patterns, as well as engage some of those private providers in the area to expand capacity,” Mr Park said.
“None of these issues easy to solve, because the challenges are significant, the demand on our services is significant in that part of Western Sydney, particularly for renal dialysis.”
Shadow health minister Kellie Sloane accused the government of neglecting the sector.
“The most basic life-saving services are being rationed across Western Sydney,” she said.
“This is incredibly alarming, this kind of approach to the minister is unprecedented, and he needs to say how he’s going to fix it.”
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So its NSW/Sydney, Why not put that information in the Headline, so that the readers can see whether it is relevant to them, without having to open the article.
That is a ploy used by mainstream media to get you to click on their link, I thought that YLC were better than that !!