LARKANA, Nov 7: Five out of 12 dialyses machines have been inoperative for three months in the department of urology of the Chandka Medical College Hospital Larkana.

Doctors working in the department told Dawn on Tuesday that the number of patients suffering from kidney problems was increasing manifold.

They said that one machine purchased three months ago went out of order within three days and since then lying idle.

In October, the department registered 261 patients for dialysis which is almost the double the number of patients received in September 2006.

The department had put four machines for conducting dialysis of patients suffering from hepatitis B and C, but the patients coming with double infection (hepatitis B and C) are referred to Karachi because such machine is not installed anywhere in the interior Sindh, said Dr Malik Jalbani.

One out of two reverse osmosis system, a key component in doing dialysis, had also gone defective.

“We are not performing ideal dialysis” said a doctor.

He said that the conductivity of the underground water utilised at the department for the purpose was very high which was the key factor in doing ideal dialysis.

He said that the renal failure cases infected with hepatitis C were on the rise that was quite worrisome.

Doctors said that the department of urology was ‘overloaded’ and they were refusing admission having only the capacity of 48 beds (urology) and 24 beds (nephrology).

“The need of the hour is to doubling the beds capacity of this unit attached with the CMCH”, they said.

They proposed appointment of a biomedical engineer at the CMCH who could repair and remove minor faults of these costly machines if developed at any time.

The absence of such engineer contributes towards the miseries of the patients as their routine dialysis sessions are not only hampered but drastically delayed.

Twelve to 15 patients regularly reach for dialysis at the CMCH but due to the variety of reasons only eight to nine are put on dialysis.

The CMCH is rich with experts in the department of urology that had also attracted good number of patients from Ghotki, Jacobabad, Sukkur, Shikarpur, Khairpur, Kashmore and Qambar-Shahdadkot districts and some parts of Balochistan province.

“We charge only Rs500 per session from the patients while the hospital management is fully meeting the medicine requirements”, doctors on duty said.