Ten brand new haemodialysis machines have been acquired by the Yaounde General Hospital to step up the number of patients’ intake that stood at 200 daily, largely insufficient to attend to everybody.
Patients suffering from kidney-related diseases in Cameroon’s political capital, Yaounde can now breathe a sigh of relief. The haemodialysis centre of the Yaounde General Hospital has been enriched with ten brand new dialysis machines, bringing the number of machines available to 22.
The equipment that will step up the treatment of patients with kidney failure was inaugurated Wednesday September 15 by the Minister of Public Health, Dr Malachie Manaouda.
The machines come just in time to attend to some hundreds of kidney failure patients in Yaounde, some of whom used to go for days and at times weeks without a single dialysis session due to insufficient machines.
The hospital that has the largest haemodialysis unit in Yaounde was in perpetual wants with only 12 machines attending to dialysis needs of about 200 patients daily, insufficient according to some hospital staff regarding the number of patients.
According to Dr Aristide Nono Tomta working at the haemodialysis unit, the 12 machines available often broke down due to overuse, making it more difficult for them to attend to patients. He indicated that with the new digital and modern machines, the unit’s capacity will be upgraded as it will ease and make treatment faster.
With the 22 machines, the unit will move from 1,500 to run 2000 dialysis sessions per month.
Thanks to this acquisition, the Government of Cameroon can rest concerning the treatment of dialysis patients in Yaounde, who for the past months were fond of protesting poor treatment and equipment shortage.
Health authorities had indicated that arrangements were been done to acquire new haemodialysis kits and that the Coronavirus was making it difficult to import the machines from suppliers abroad due to travel restrictions and the economic slowdown.
Dialysis was introduced in Cameroon in the early 1980s, and included both peritoneal and hemodialysis. However, hemodialysis has been the only available modality of renal respiratory therapy for over two decades now
As at today, statistics from the Ministry of Health have it that the country has about 2,500 patients with acute kidney infections, up from 400 in 2012.
Ariane Foguem
