‘Not a priority’
Hants County dialysis patients long to see treatment closer to home
Doreen and Gerald Hood know all too well the toll travelling to and from dialysis treatment takes on a family.
Gerald Hood, who now lives at the Windsor Elms Village in Falmouth, started dialysis about eight years ago.
Three times a week, paramedics pick him up in the morning, around 10 a. m., bring him to the Victoria General Hospital in Halifax, where he undergoes hemodialysis in a room with more than a dozen other pa- tients, then he waits back home.
“When I go down there, it’s a five- hour treatment and then you wait for an ambulance. That could be another five hours,” said Gerald, noting that he’s experienced both short wait times and delays of up to four-and-ahalf hours.
“It’s terrible,” he said. “They’re just busy, busy, busy.”
Added his wife of 58
“He’s not a priority.”
But it wasn’t always that way. For several years prior to moving into the senior citizens’ home, Gerald tried both home dialysis and hemodialysis.
“I can’t remember what year it for a lift years, was, but they installed the machine in our house and they took us down there for five weeks to learn how to do it, to run the machine and the monitors,” said Doreen.
She helped Gerald with his peritoneal dialysis for about a year and a half until specialists determined they were not healthy enough to continue the process at home. That’s when they resumed travelling to Halifax, with Doreen behind the wheel.
“It just about killed her. She had two open heart surgeries,” said Gerald, of the health complications his wife experienced.
The Hoods say a lot of people don’t realize that the appointments are required regardless of the road conditions — and they, like other Hants County residents on hemodialysis, have travelled in every kind of weather. It’s stressful and it’s costly.
“Most hospitals in PEI — and you know how small PEI is — have dialysis units. Why can’t we?” asked Doreen.
Prince Edward Island, which has a population of less than 150,000 people, has four main hospitals in which to receive hemodialysis: Souris, Charlottetown, Summerside and Alberton. The vast majority of residents would have a maximum drive time of 30 minutes.
Nova Scotia, which has a population of more than 940,000 people, has three chronic kidney disease clinics — Cape Breton, Halifax and Yarmouth — plus eight satellite hemodialysis units in more ‘rural’ settings. The closest one to Windsor is in Berwick, about 45 minutes away, but that will be relocating to Kentville in the near future.
Gerald would love to see a satellite dialysis unit open up at the Hants Community Hospital, even if it’s something he couldn’t use.
“Well, my time is not all that valuable, but it certainly would save me lots of time,” he said of the convenience of having a site locally.
Gerald noted that he probably wouldn’t be able to access treatment in Windsor because of his medical condition. He has passed out during hemodialysis and is considered at a higher risk than other patients.