The criminal act of not educating patients

Today, I went for the monthly distribution of coupons that subsidize dialysis for people who cannot afford it by the Jain Dialysis Trust. These visits are truly humbling. When I see the work the trust is doing, my head simply bows down before them. It is not easy to save a human life. Yet, these people have saved at least a couple of hundred.

I happened to meet a young guy, on dialysis for a couple of months now. I introduced myself to him and chatted about his background and history with renal disease. I then asked him about a transplant. He said he was not told by his doctor about that option but had heard about it and was exploring it.

I wonder why he wasn't told about that option? Was any education given to him at all about his options? Was PD mentioned? Or was he simply condemned to a life of hemodialysis??

Who will educate patients if it is not for the doctors? Every patient does not have access to the internet. Even those who do may not be proactive enough or feel the necessity to look this up.

A simple talk about the different options doesn't take too long. Is that too much to ask? Tell me, someone please!

Comments

Anonymous said…
nice post! very true! The need for explaining all the options available for a patient with renal failure cannot be stressed enough!!
Kamal! I think, some ppl who has gud knowledge abt the disease and the different options, different treatments available in market can group up and hold some frequent discussions at some place which can be advertised to the patients thru pamplets at known dialysis centres, kidney disease hospitals or by placing the pamplets in newspapers etc. This needs much time and funds too which i think can be raised by the trusts who volunteer. May be some ppl are already doing it and we may just need to discover them. Its just an idea.
Kamal D Shah said…
Great idea Thrinath. We are actually in the process of doing this. We formed the Hyderabad Kidney Foundation. We just launched our first newsletter and are having our first support group meeting this Saturday.
Thats great Kamal! But this looks quiet sophisticated from a layman point of view. Most challenging part here is to let the news of such forum to a common man. But yeah, its quite a good initiative to start off with!!