In a matter of weeks, patients suffering from kidney diseases and other ailments that require the purification of the blood through regular dialysis, will benefit from those services at a subsidized cost at the Linden Hospital Complex (LHC).
Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Michelle Bollers in an interview with the Village Voice, said that the construction of the centre is completed as well as the installation of the machines and management is awaiting the go ahead from the Ministry of Health to commence operations.
As soon as logistics are sorted, Bollers is eyeing the 1st November as the commencement date. She said that nurses and other medical personnel have already completed their training to perform their duties. Bollers said that already, about eight patients have registered at LHC to perform their dialysis at the centre. “We have patients who are already coming in and registering to start doing their dialysis in Linden, we have about eight applications presently for persons who are doing dialysis in Georgetown that would like to do their dialysis in Linden,” she said.
The installation of the machines was done by FIVE G Dialysis, a company specialised in this field. Bollers said she is very excited that this service is coming to the Upper Demerara- Upper Berbice Region, as it is a long awaited one. “I feel very excited, I am even hoping for this to happen tomorrow, because with the center open, it would be really good for them to save in and it would also be safe for them because they won’t have to travel in a public transportation where they would be exposed because they would already have an underlying condition,” she said.
The decentralisation of the services will no doubt reduce the inconvenience as well as the transportation cost of citizens having to travel to Georgetown. One dialysis patient who journeys to Georgetown twice a week, said that he pays $8,000 minimum in transportation cost per week. There are about 45 patients who travel to Georgetown weekly for dialysis treatment from Linden.
