Samoa’s Minister of Health, Tuitama Dr Talalelei Tuitama believes that kidney transplants should help lighten the load currently carried by the country’s dialysis unti at the National Kidney Foundation.
According to Tuitama 109 patients are treated at the dialysis unit three times a week.
He said while the patients are charged $10 per session, the actual cost of $1,000 per session is carried by NKF which is funded by government grants and donations.
Tuitama believes that introducing a kidney transplant scheme would reduce the cost of dialysis treatment but he did not say by how much.
“We want to start talking to families about the possibilities of this kind of treatment,” he said.
This week the Womens Committee of the Congregational Chrsitian Church of Samoa donated $SAT30,000 to the Samoa National Kidney Foundation.
“The major portion of donated funds goes into the Foundation’s preventive efforts, primarily on our Community Outreach Medical Screening programmes, as the bulk of the Government grant go to funding dialysis treatments, and pre-dialysis clinics,” NKF General Manager Mulipola Lose Hazelman told the Samoa Observer.
Mulipola said ten years ago only 26 patients were treated at the NKF unit.
“Government is committed to the sustainability of the Foundation and thus the major portion of our funding will continue to be from Government,” he said.
Mulipola pointed out the main concern for Samoa is the high incidence of non- communicable diseases (N.C.D.’s), which could lead to chronic kidney disease and eventually end stage kidney failure, if the N.C.D. is not treated or managed.
“This is especially so with the relatively high rates of diabetes and hypertension within our community,” he said.
And there’s concern that relatively younger patients are on dialysis.
“Before, the norm with the patients coming in for dialysis would be between 55 and above, but we are now seeing this new trend of those under 30s,” said Mulipola.
