The 10-year contract between the Directorate General of Health Services and Sandor Dialysis Services Bangladesh Ltd, which provides kidney dialysis at nominal cost in public hospitals, ends on 29 November. Unless it is renewed or a new decision is taken in time, the service could stop, and poor kidney patients and their families are anxious, Daily Bangladesh reports.
Sandor, an associate of the Indian company Sandrinofi India Private Ltd, began work in November 2016 under a public-private partnership (PPP). It runs 59 dialysis machines at the National Institute of Kidney Diseases and Urology (NIKDU) in Dhaka and 31 at Chattogram Medical College Hospital, serving hundreds of patients a day.
Subsidised patients, nominated by the hospitals' social welfare departments or authorities, usually pay Tk 400 to Tk 621 a session. Patients outside the subsidy pay about Tk 2,935 to Tk 3,397 a session themselves.
With the contract running out, no specific instruction on renewal or an alternative has come yet, leaving the service in doubt. Public health experts fear a serious crisis in kidney care if no decision is made in time.
Photo: Dan from United Kingdom / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)
Source: Daily Bangladesh
Comments
(0)