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By Tata Mbunwe
North West Regional Delegate for Public Health, Dr. Kingsley Che Soh, has said haemodialysis patients at the Bamenda Regional Hospital should be patient as Government works on reinstating broken-down dialysis machines in a few days.
An earlier communique by the hospital’s director, Dr. Denis Nsame, had suspended operations at the haemodialysis centre because of the “unforeseen acute breakdown of machines at the dialysis center”.
The information that went viral on local radio stations kept patients worried about their survival in the days ahead as no alternative means of treatment was proposed.
The Bamenda haemodialysis centre, which had been operating for eight years now, hosts dozens of patients suffering from especially kidney infections and such patients are in need of delicate and intensive care.
Regional Delegate Dr Che Soh has however said the centre is not closed, assuring that machines will be reinstated in the days ahead, but without stating the condition of patients at the hospital at the moment.
Media reports say several patients who depend on the centre are frustrated and risk dying if the dialysis machines are not replaced soon.
People with kidney problems need to go through a dialysis machine at least twice every week as their system cannot perform urinary functions without these machines.
After the breakdown of dialysis machines was announced, several persons have been worried about the government’s laxity in maintaining the lone dialysis centre in the Northwest region, a centre that is expected to serve the region’s over three million inhabitants.
Mismanagement and lack of maintenance services have been blamed for the frequent breakdown of such intensive care machines, though the government advanced different reasons.
A similar breakdown of machines at the Buea Regional Hospital haemodialysis centre in 2019 was only reinstated weeks after patients threatened to protest.
