Mangaluru: SDPI urged the government to restart the free dialysis programme conducted in district hospitals under the Suvarna Arogya Suraksha Trust that benefited countless disadvantaged families. 

The Suvarna Arogya Suraksha Trust under the state, Health and Family Welfare Department had made available free dialysis for patients ailing from kidney disease for long at various private hospitals in the district.

However, now suddenly the government has withdrawn the facilities and poor patients are at the receiving end. The government should mull over this and reinstate the facility, demanded SDPI district president Ataullah Jokatte.

He was addressing media persons at the SDPI office on Saturday, March 20. He said that the district hospital has 12 dialysis machines and only 11 are in working condition. Everyday only 45 patients can be accommodated and this has made many queues outside the various hospitals, he noted and requested 50 dialysis machines at the district hospital at the earliest.

He also demanded 10 dialysis machines for every taluk hospitals and 4 dialysis machines for community health centres, which if provided will help poor patients from various rural areas, he added. As many in the poor and middle class are ailing from kidney diseases and they need dialysis at least once a week even establishing dialysis machines by procuring them at the hospitals through donors too is a good idea, he proposed.