The time has come for Government to enact legislation that will allow dialysis patients to access kidneys from cadavers. This assertion has come from director of the Queen Elizabeth Hospital (QEH),?Dr Dexter James, who yesterday reported a phenomenal increase in kidney disease in Barbados.
He said the number of admissions to the hospital’s renal unit had grown by 133 per cent over the past 12 years.
The hospital director warned that if the current trend continued there would be at least 400 patients who would require dialysis treatment by the year 2020.
James said 20 per cent of haemodialysis patients were “prime candidates” for transplantation.
His call for laws governing family consent, declaration of brain death, transplantation and anatomy, was supported by doctors in the hospital’s renal unit who said such legislation could relieve pressure at QEH and reduce costs.
Read the full story in today’s DAILY NATION.
