Agartala, August 7 (TIWN): The Tripura Congress recently wrote to Minister of Health and Family Welfare Badal Choudhury seeking his intervention to withdraw the fees currently applicable for haemodialysis patients at the Gobinda Bhallabh Pant Hospital, the only hospital of the state capable of running the treatment. Opposition leader Sudip Roy Barman wrote to Choudhury and requested him to free the haemodialysis system charges and provide the necessary ancillary elements like fluid, heparin, fistula needle etc for free through the Rogi Kalyan Samiti.

“The number of patients undergoing dialysis is increasing by the day. The GB Hospital is the only hospital to have got the service. Though the dialysis unit is now running in three shifts in comparison to the previous arrangement of 3 shifts, it is manned by untrained technicians”, Roy Barman said. “The only so-called trained staff handling the unit, underwent a short crash course at the beginning of their service. This is highly risky for a sensitive treatment”, he added.

Hospital sources said that patients other than BPL families need to pay a dialysis fee of Rs. 500 per dialysis and most of the patients come for t least 2-3 times a week. The patients are required to purchase artificial kidney or dialyzer, haemodialysis fluid, heparin, fistula needle, hydrogen peroxide and other equipments for the process which costs around Rs. 1,200-Rs. 1,700 additionally, the source said.

Senior doctor Dr. Pradip Bhowmik said that the dialysis unit of the Agartala Government Medical College and GB Pant Hospital operates 10 beds and provides dialysis to about 20 patients on an average everyday.