KUCHING: Advocacy work on the prevention of Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD) must continue to be carried out as well as initiated at the early education level. Welfare, Community Wellbeing, Women, Family and Childhood Development Minister Datuk Seri Fatimah Abdullah said, “Such effort entails good eating habits and balanced meal among our children to educate them on healthy lifestyles and preventing diseases which can lead to CKD such as diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol and obesity.”
She said this at a press conference after officiating at the closing of a workshop on a proposal to set up a health assistance scheme to help kidney patients from the low income group at a hotel here, yesterday.
The number of kidney failure cases reported annually in the country is between 7,000 and 8,000. As of last January, a total of 40,000 patients are currently undergoing dialysis treatment.
According to the State Health Department there were 3,317 kidney patients recorded in Sarawak last year.
Of the number, 2,920 patients were undergoing dialysis treatment with 275 undergoing Continous Ambulatory Peritoneal Dialysis (CAPD) while the rest (122) had undergone kidney transplant.
Of the total number of patients undergoing dialysis treatment (2,920), 1,183 patients are treated at government treatment centres, 702 at private centres and 1,035 at centres operated by non-governmental organisations (NGOs).
Fatimah commented, “Gross surveys show that the number of male kidney patients is more compared to women, while comparison in terms of age group indicates that the number of patients is dominant from age group 55 years and above.”
She noted that Sarawak had 45 haemodialysis treatment centres where 25 were operating under the Ministry of Health (MoH) which imposed a nominal charge of RM13, while 11 by private hospitals, and nine treatment centres were operated by NGOs.
“Apart from that, there are 314 dialysis machines provided by the MoH and of the number, 112 are over eight years old and needed to be replaced with new ones. I was also informed that the estimated cost for one dialysis machine is RM42,000.
“For the private sector, there are 273 dialysis machines while treatment centres run by NGOs have 30 dialysis machines. Most of these treatment centres operate three shifts a day with the capability of treating up to six patients at a time. Each session lasts about four hours.”
Hence, Fatimah emphasised the importance of educating on CKD at an earlier stage and added that one of the existing efforts by her ministry was providing a special annual grant of RM5,000 to 3,031 pre-schools throughout the state to implement balanced meals and activity-based fun learning.
“However, enforcement in schools isn’t adequate. The education of preventing CKD stretch way back to parenting at home as well as everyone’s responsibility to make it works,” she concluded.
