PESHAWAR, Nov 23: The provincial health department is studying a proposal to shift the nephrology unit from Lady Reading Hospital (LRH) to the newly-established Kidney Centre (KC) at the Hayatabad Medical Complex (HMC).

"The move has given rise to serious concerns among medical practitioners and patients, who visit the unit for kidney ailments," said a doctor. The Workers Welfare Board had recently established a modern Kidney Centre at the HMC in collaboration with the provincial health department, which was expected to be commissioned early next year.

In order to run such modern centre, the health department is at present reviewing various proposals one of which is to shift the existing staff and equipment of nephrology unit of the LRH over there, sources in health department told Dawn.

According to the sources, in initial plan, the staff currently working at nephrology unit would be shifted to the KC, while a few dialysis machines would remain at the LRH with some trainee medical officers to offer only dialysis service to patients.

The proposed shifting of the unit has raised concern among medical professionals particularly those dealing with kidney diseases. They are of the view that nephrology was not simply dialysis but it included almost all ailments of kidneys. Hence, dialysis could never be regarded as nephrology.

They said at present there was a 30-bed unit of nephrology in the LRH, but most of the time, it remained overcrowded as the patients arranged beds on their own. Therefore, the 30-bed KC could not cater to the needs of huge number of kidney patients of the city.

The issue of shifting of the LRH's nephrology unit had also come under discussion at the floor of provincial assembly, where the health minister had told the house that the LRH nephrology unit would maintain its separate identity. However, now it has been learnt that the efforts to shift the complete unit have once again been under way, creating concern among the doctors as well as the patients.

The doctors believe that the shifting of the unit to the KC will increase the miseries of the patients. There would be no treatment for patients having acute renal failure due to surgical, medical, gynaecological, urological, cardiology events, they added.

When contacted, an official at the LRH clarified that no plan of shifting of nephrology unit had been finalized as yet, but certain proposals were under discussion and one of these was to shift the unit to the KC.