Collapse of AKTH dialysis machines worsen patients’ suffering

The breakdown of more than a dozen dialysis machines at Aminu Kano Teaching Hospital (AKTH) is taking a huge toll on patients who have to wait for hours to get served, thereby worsening their health conditions. A reliable source at the hospital told Kano Chronicle that out of about 25 functional dialysis machines that used […]

The breakdown of more than a dozen dialysis machines at Aminu Kano Teaching Hospital (AKTH) is taking a huge toll on patients who have to wait for hours to get served, thereby worsening their health conditions.

A reliable source at the hospital told Kano Chronicle that out of about 25 functional dialysis machines that used to serve hundreds of patients from within and outside Kano state, “at least 14 have broken down due to poor operational practices and maintenance culture”.

The source, who requested anonymity for fear of victimization, said due to the inability of the hospital’s management to fix the faulty machines, the remaining 11 functioning units had been overwhelmed.

“Before the breakdown of the dialysis machines, they were working on two shifts for 24 hours with each patient spending a minimum of four hours on a machine. During that time, we used to serve at least 75 patients in 24 hours,” he said.

“But presently that number has crashed to only 27 patients in a day meaning that dozens of patients have to wait for longer period of time to be attended to while others even miss their own turn, making them to suffer unbearable pains,” he added.

The most worrisome situation, according to the source, is that most patients from the north suffering from HIV/AIDs, hepatitis and sepsis depend on AKTH for their dialysis “because it is the only hospital that has dialysis machines for these diseases”.

When reminded that one of the Kano state-owned hospitals has dialysis machines, the source said: “Yes, but the machines they have are ordinary dialysis machines that cannot treat patients with HIV/AIDs, hepatitis and sepsis. And even at that, the quality of their service is not the same with that of AKTH. In fact, sometimes they have to refer their patients to receive the normal dialysis here”.

A resident of Gwarzo local government area of Kano state, who receives his dialysis at AKTH to treat hepatitis, said recently, he had to spend some nights in Kano city waiting for his turn.

“Honestly, we are suffering seriously because of the insufficient dialysis machines at the AKTH because now we have to wait longer than necessary. In the past, I used to come from Gwarzo and do my dialysis in time and go back, because there were enough machines for all of us.

But now we have to wait for many hours or even miss our sessions,” said the patient.
Another patient of kidney failure, who comes from Mangu local government area of Plateau state for his dialysis, also complained that the delays he endure, before receiving his services were taking financial tolls on him.

“I appeal to the management of Aminu Kano hospital to pity us and address the problems of insufficient dialysis machines. They should take our suffering into consideration and repair all their damaged machines or get new ones to treat us,” he pleaded.

When contacted, the Head of Dialysis Unit of the Hospital, Professor Aliyu Abdu, said the hospital had 18 dialysis machines not 25, however, he confirmed that some of the machines had developed some faults.

Professor Abdu explained that the hospital which had the highest number of dialysis patients in the whole country had the capacity of accommodating only 14 dialysis machines in its pot.

He said, “Eight dialysis machines are working concurrently in our pot. We have dedicated three machines for septic patients that comprised Hepatitis A, Hepatitis B and HIV patients. Five other machines are dedicated for normal patients.

“We are doing dialysis for 70 patients in a day and each patient has to spend, at least, minimum of four hours and when we finished with a patient, we have to disinfect the machines twice and at each we will spend at least 45 minutes. So, people have to understand that the process of dialysis is time consuming.”