By: Felix Ikpotor
As the world commemorates World Kidney Day, experts have emphasized the need for adequate care for persons living with the disease and increased awareness on how to prevent the ailment.
Speaking with journalist as part of activities commemorating this year’s World Kidney Day celebration with the theme: “Kidney Health for All – Preparing for the unexpected, supporting the vulnerable”, a Consultant Nephrologist, Department of Internal Medicine, University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital, Professor Pedro Enem-Chioma, said kidney disease is dangerous and needs adequate care as it plays an important role to the overall function of the body.
He noted that over eight hundred and fifty million of people are living with kidney disease globally, about twenty million people have kidney disease in Nigeria, while over ten (10) percent of six million persons living in Rivers state have kidney disease.
Professor Enem-Chioma said that the public health sector would function better if there are some forms of preparedness and action plan in place to combat kidney disease, support and provide treatment for those living with the disease as they are vulnerable.
“Kidney disease is dangerous, nobody should be deceived, any organ with functions that is so important and not only important to self but affect the functions of other organs, of course can be dangerous, so it kills. We have different kinds of kidney diseases such as acute kidney injury or known as acute kidney failure and the chronic kidney disease.
“Acute kidney disease is of short duration it happens suddenly and could manifest between hours, days and weeks. It is important for us to recognize because we tend to say it is potentially reversible, what it means is that if you catch it early and we are able to remove the cause, offer appropriate treatment, it is highly possible that we can return back the kidney function to where it was before and avoid it continuing to chronic kidney disease.
“The kidney because of the central role it plays affect what we call the endocrine system, the system of the body that produces certain chemicals that affect our general body function. The sex hormones are also involved in this, because of the inappropriate kidney function for a woman her menstrual cycle will cease, kidney disease can lead to infertility either in a woman or a man.
“This theme focuses on our level of preparedness in the face of disaster, we just talked about COVID, what ever form of disaster if people are not prepared certain people are going to suffer more and this is when we talk about people who are vulnerable. Kidney patient fall within this category; reason being that some of them are under going care and some of these treatment is actually very complex.
“For example: someone who is on hemodialysis, needs dialysis three times a week to remain alive, is there any plan we have for such people? Or someone who just had a kidney transplant that needs some medications to keep the kidney functioning. What are the level of care to these persons if such occurs?
“If there are some plan of action, paraventure this kind of thing happened XYZ should be done, you will discover that the effectiveness of our public health will be much better when we are prepared. People who are living with kidney disease are vulnerable, if we are going to make any preparations, we should also remember them and put them as part of our action plan in preparatory situation for crisis management.”
Also speaking, Head of Nephrology Department UPTH, Dr. David West- Manda, said hypertension and diabetes are the common cause of kidney disease, and can be prevented by avoiding intakes of herbal supplements, abuse of painkillers drugs and chemical substances.
“We have what is called early symtoms, usually everyone have two kidneys, one kidney may fail and the person will still be normal no symptoms, at the point when the second kidney will fail that is when the person will start having symptoms. These symptoms could be tiredness, fast breathing, leg swelling, face or whole body swelling.
“It can also come with what is called decrease in urine output because the pee comes from the kidney, so if the kidney is not working well there will be reduction in urine. Some persons can have bone pain, the kidney helps our bones to be strong by providing vitamin D, foaming urine is also a sign of kidney disease.
“At the end stage people undergoing dialysis will come down with vomiting, hiccups, convulsion, insomnia people with kidney hardly sleep at night and they feel very weak.
“It is important for patients to present early, go for routine check, do urine and blood test. Most people that suffer kidney disease are people with hypertension or diabetes disease.
“People should avoid supplements herbal medications most of them are major cause of kidney disease. Painkiller Medicines are also a major cause of kidney disease, when people abuse painkillers over a long time, it causes kidney failure over time, we advise people to take lots of water kidney needs water to function well, avoid smoking alcohol intake.”
On her part, Dr Tochi Uchenwa, Consultant Paediatrics Nephrologist in the hospital said they have been embarking on aggressive awareness campaign in the media and reaching out to schools on kidney health and how they can detect and prevent kidney diseases.
She said the hospital has been partnering with non- governmental organizations to assist patients who cannot afford kidney care but noted that the support has not been much because of the economic situation and called on the government to intervene in kidney care.
“We are calling on the government to help because kidney care, especially chronic care is expensive as most persons cannot afford the cost of dialysis, blood needed and other medications. We are also suggesting that the care for those with kidney diseases should be subsidized, we also called on philanthropist to help sponsor transplant for some patients who can’t afford it as we are losing a lot of people to kidney diseases”.
