Climbing Kili buys kidney patients hope
FOR 11 UCT students, braving a six-day journey in below zero conditions and an exhausting trek to the top of Mount Kilimanjaro was nothing compared to the fight dialysis patients put up in order to live.
To raise funds to address the shortage of renal dialysis machines and spread awareness on kidney donation, UCT students launched the Kilimanjaro Kidney Climb Initiative through the UCT Surgical Society.
A group of 38 students raised funds individually through sponsors and donors, and 11 made the climb in December.
They raised R517 000, and two haemodialysis machines were acquired for the renal unit at Groote Schuur Hospital.
The machines will allow more patients to be treated for renal failure.
Ahead of World Kidney Day today, the students spoke at the hospital, which assists about 155 patients with dialysis treatment.
Student Amy Paterson said she was inspired to participate because of an 18-year-old patient she had tutored.
The teenager died shortly before the students went on the trip.
“She would come in for dialysis three times a week. During my lunch breaks I would go and tutor her maths initially.
“As she got more ill, I realised it wasn’t really about tutoring her maths as much as just building a friendship.
“She was admitted for long periods, and her mom often wasn’t able to visit.
“She was the reason I decided to do it. Because I saw how dialysis gave her a second chance for a long time – and what was a meaningful few years that she wouldn’t have had otherwise,” Paterson said.
“She really inspired me, she was so brave through the whole thing.
“We have such amazing support systems, and she had almost nothing except for the doctors in the unit, who basically became her family.
“She was so excited about us hiking for it. She told all the sisters and all the other patients in the unit and she got everyone involved in making a video that helped to raise awareness and funds,” Paterson said.
“I spent a lot of my days with her. It is still strange having my lunch breaks free.”
Student Nicolas Loxton said patients who would normally be sent home because there aren’t enough treatment machines could be given a second chance.
“Dialysis is something that is not widely known about.
“And it’s a very emotional topic, because you have this committee that gets together, and patients are ranked on need and potential outcomes, only the ones who are most likely to benefit are given the treatment.
“The people who just don’t make it because they can’t afford private dialysis are sent home to wait to hopefully arrive at the front of the waiting list, or in the meantime perish,” he said.
Kidney specialist Dr Zunaid Barday appealed to the public to become organ donors.
“When someone says yes to organ donation, that’s four lives that can be saved,” he said.
Private treatment costs could be in the region of R400 000 a year.
“The technology is there nut the funds are not,” he said.
Symptoms of renal failure are subtle and those who came to seek help are often at advanced stages of illness, Barday said.