It’s a tough ride for renal patients

KOCHI:  The lockdown period has been tough for everyone, but the people who have been the most affected are those with medical issues like renal failure. Many of these patients need dialysis twice or thrice a week, depending on the severity of their condition. However, with lockdown taking away the choices of free movement and transportation, the patients and their relatives are left scrambling for vehicles, paying exorbitant sums as rental charges. “My mother Bhama, who is 76, needs dialysis thrice a week,” said Binu Raj who lives in Varapuzha. According to him, post the lockdown, the hospital where she undergoes treatment initially reduced the procedure to two per week.

“They blamed it on the unavailability of staff. However, after she began to show distress like elevated blood pressure, breathlessness and fluid retention, they were forced to restart the thrice- a-week regimen,” said Binu. The woes don’t end there.

“With no other available mode of transportation, we depend on our neighbour to ferry my mother to and from the hospital. And we are paying a tidy sum as fare,” he added. According to him, though the hospital has issued them a certificate proving that his mother is a patient and needs to travel for dialysis, it doesn’t always help. “We were lucky not to have faced the ire of cops,” he adds. But things aren’t always safe. Another pat ient R Prakash faced the hard side of things when the car he was travelling was stopped near the Thoppumpady Bridge.

“The driver was asked to return even af ter they showed cops the certificate,” said Binu. The patient got restless after hearing the heated exchange and his heartbeats increased. Meanwhile, 50-year-old T B Sudeep from Varapuzha has been making two trips every week on bike to Kolenchery for dialysis. “I know the heal th impl icat ions it might have, but at present I am helpless.

I need to undergo dialysis twice every week and can’t skip it. I have been doing this for the past year,” said Sudeep. With the lockdown in place, Sudeep is being taken to the hospital in Kolenchery by his friend on a bike. “The travel is not very comfortable but there aren’t many options,” he said.

Lockdown has left renal patients,w ho require frequenttravel tothe hospital fordialysis, in direstraits