AM's plea over dialysis hike

7:36pm Tuesday 9th October 2007

Comments (0)   Have your say »

A GWENT AM is calling is appealing to the health minister for action over the amount of time it takes for patients in her constituency to travel for life-saving dialysis treatment.

Blaenau Gwent's Trish Law raised the issue with Edwina Hart as some people in her constituency have to make a round trip of more than 40 miles three times a week to receive the essential treatment at St Woolos Hospital in Newport.

Neil Herbert, 71, of Gladstone Street, Blaina, has been having dialysis treatment for five years and has to get up at 5.30am to be collected at 6.30am for his treatment which starts at 7.30am and does not get home until around 2.30pm - three hours after his dialysis has finished.

The ambulance car which takes him to and from his treatment also stops at Blackwood and Risca on the way to and from the hospital to pick up other patients.

"I come out at 11:30 and sometimes I'm waiting until 1:30pm. Waiting down there is absolutely terrible, it drives you daft - all you want to do is get home," he said.

Mr Herbert was diagnosed with kidney problems five years ago after he had heart surgery following four heart attacks, the operating surgeon referred him to a kidney specialist who started him on dialysis straight away.

He says his dialysis treatment leaves him exhausted, a fact not helped by the wait he sometimes has to endure before he can get home.

"On Thursday I had to wait an hour and a half, it was terrible, by the time you get home you're absolutely shattered," he said.

Mrs Law has also written to the Ambulance Trust to see if the transport arrangements for the patients can be improved, she said: "It's enough of an ordeal for an elderly person to have to undergo renal dialysis treatment without prolonging the agony with lengthy delays in hospital or on the road."

An Assembly advisory group has recommended that dialysis facilities need to be provided in North Gwent as well as Newport.

The National Service Framework published by the Assembly states that access to a dialysis unit must be within 30 minutes travel time from their home with a flexible and responsive transport system.

The Kidney Wales Foundation recently described the state of renal care in Wales as "Third world."