Kidney patients usually go to dialysis centers three days a week when necessary. Dialysis machines filter your blood externally to your body. Kidney patients need to be attached to the dialysis machines for four hours during each treatment. Chronic kidney disease is the ninth leading cause of death in the United States. The only option that dialysis patients have is to get kidney transplants. The United States spends more money on dialysis treatments than any other nation in the world. In 1972, Richard Nixon signed a Bill into Law that the United States Government would pay for dialysis for any one who needed it.
There are approximately half a million dialysis patients in the United States and 7,000 outpatient dialysis clinics. Federal regulations require that only one nurse be present at each site all the time; and a doctor isn’t required to be at the dialysis site. Dialysis machines have to be properly disinfected between patients; and patients must be thoroughly dialyzed before a machine is vacated for the next patient. Pharmaceuticals injected while the kidney patient is undergoing dialysis must be given at the proper dosages and time points. One year after being on dialysis, the patient’s death rate is 25%. By five years, the dialysis patient’s death rate is 65%. A kidney transplant would double or triple the patient’s survival rate; and is highly recommended.
