HYDERABAD: With major city hospitals diverting their resources towards tackling the Covid-19 outbreak in the initial days of lockdown, several patients of chronic kidney disease ended up missing at least one dialysis session, a multi-centre study has revealed.
The Osmania General Hospital (OGH) and some private hospitals in the city, which were part of the study that also included 17 other hospitals across the country, saw at least one-third of the kidney patients’ treatment getting affected in the initial days of lockdown.
The study, titled ‘The Adverse Effect of Covid Pandemic on the Care of Patients With Kidney Diseases in India’, pointed out that “the lack of preparedness before lockdown resulted in an interruption in healthcare services and posed an immediate adverse effect on the outcome of dialysis patients and those with kidney diseases in India.”
It also revealed that 28.2% of patients missed one or more dialysis sessions during the first three weeks of lockdown. Of these, nearly 3% ended up in emergency rooms for dialysis and less than 1% succumbed to complications.
The study has predicted that impact of Covid-19 on the way services are being run will last for several months.
The OGH, which had taken additional load of Gandhi hospital patients as well as some from private centres, saw influx of people looking for dialysis increasing multi-fold during the lockdown. Services at most other hospitals were either hit or were shut off in the beginning of the outbreak, the ripple effect of which is being felt until now, patients have said.
However, patients have said that the situation seems to be coming back to normal now with more awareness about the Covid-19 infection among dialysis patients. Lesser number of patients are skipping their sessions.
“At the OGH, majority of the patients are coming for dialysis regularly now. Also, patients are coming forwards for Covid testing as the fear has reduced. An estimated 5%-7% of dialysis patients have got infected and majority of them have survived,” a senior official from the hospital said.