The process for the installation of 10 new dialysis machines at Chattogram Medical College and Hospital (CMCH) has started following the protest of kidney patients and their relatives.
The hospital authorities confirmed the arrival of the new machines on Thursday from the health ministry to provide dialysis services to the patients.
The machines arrived at a time when the Sandor Dialysis Center was set up at the hospital under the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) Project.
The hospital authorities said that these machines will be installed in the kidney ward within the next 15 days providing dialysis services to helpless and poor patients at a low-cost price.
They hoped that the crisis of the patients will go away very soon.
According to CMCH authorities, there are now seven dialysis machines, including three in the Covid unit of the hospital. Now that the outbreak of Covid has reduced, the three machines will be used to serve the poor and ultra-poor patients.
Sources said a total of 17 machines will provide uninterrupted dialysis services to poor patients after the commissioning of 10 new machines.
They said kidney patients can get dialysis services at a low cost from the government here. A patient has to pay TK 20,000 at a time for six months. This dialysis service will be provided at Tk 416 for two sessions per week.
Apart from this, it will be possible to provide dialysis services to more than 100 poor patients if 10 new dialysis machines are introduced here.
While talking to the media, CMCH Director Brig Gen Shamim Ahsan said that a total of 17 machines, including the previous seven, can provide dialysis services to poor patients at a lower cost than private ones.
However, sources said those poor patients who were getting subsidies can undergo dialysis here as per the recommendation of the hospital authorities.
Earlier, kidney patients and their relatives staged demonstrations in Chattogram for a week protesting the dialysis fee hike of the private institution Sandor and the reduction of subsidy on dialysis by the government.
Sandor Dialysis Services Bangladesh (Pvt) Ltd, a private organisation under CMCH, has been providing services to kidney patients. The one-time dialysis fee has been increased to Tk 535 instead of Tk 510 with subsidy and Tk 2,935 instead of Tk 2,785 without subsidy from January 1.
