A Consumers’ Foundation survey released yesterday showed that 30 percent of patients believe their dialysis centers could offer better treatment, particularly in terms of the ratio of patients to medical personnel, with nurses sometimes looking after five patients or more at the same time.
According to statistics from the Department of Health (DOH), as of May, the number of people affected by uremia stood at 63,655, a 6.9 percent increase from December.
The dialysis market is also growing between 5 percent and 6 percent each year, showing that the number of patients with kidney failure requiring regular visits to hospitals or dialysis centers continues to grow.
A survey conducted by the consumer rights watchdog last month included interviews with more than 80 patients who require regular dialysis and showed that 30 percent of patients are not satisfied with dialysis centers.
Although the vast majority of patients said that their physicians explained clearly the methods of treatment and made professional recommendations as to which to choose, a little more than 2 percent said their physicians had not done so.
Hwang Yu-sheng (黃鈺生), secretary-general of the foundation, said that although the DOH encourages patients to choose peritoneal dialysis over hemodialysis, 78 out of 80 doctors still recommend hemodialysis, showing that the DOH needs to redouble its efforts.
In the survey, 24.4 percent of respondents said staff at their dialysis center looked after at least five patients at a time.
However, when the foundation called the dialysis centers to confirm, all gave the standard reply that each nurse was assigned only four patients at a time.
Hospitals and medical centers are prohibited from assigning more than four people to each member of staff at any one time.
The regulations are an important way of preventing emergency events from becoming fatal for patients because of inadequate staffing, Hwang said.
Hwang urged the health authorities to step up inspections and order substandard dialysis centers to make improvements in order to safeguard the safety of patients.
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