[In Richard Kojo Nyarko's documentary titled Paying to Live, he tells the chilling stories of frustration and dispair of kidney failure patients and families of such individuals. The cost of dialysis for patients is so high some families stop the procedure and look on helplessly while their relation passes on. The Hotline documentary airs at 8:30am Thursday and 6:15pm Sunday, 2014]

Kidney disease is ripping many families apart because of its huge treatment and management cost. The disease has left families in a dilemma- to leave the affected persons to die or to spend the family’s fortune on their relative or the affected person.

Thousands of people go through the painful situation of deciding whether to allow their relatives and loved ones to die or sell all they have to keep them alive. Kidney failure has now become very rampant with 1 out of 3 people who visit the Cape Coast Teaching Hospital in Ghana being diagnosed with the diseases.

Available research by the Ghana Health Service indicates many people have kidney failures but do not know.
 

The kidney is a sensitive organ that filters extra water and waste from the body. Being diagnosed with a kidney disease means that the kidneys are damaged or malfunctioning and can't filter blood and other fluids in the body.

When your kidneys fail, dialysis keeps your body in balance by removing waste, salt and extra water to prevent them from building up in the body; keeping a safe level of certain chemicals in your blood, such as potassium, sodium and bicarbonate and helping to control blood pressure.

People who have been diagnosed with kidney failures are obliged to be on the dialysis at least 3 times a week to enable them continue living. The dialysis is a treatment that does some of the things done by healthy kidneys. It is needed when your own kidneys can no longer take care of your body's needs.

The cost of being on the dialysis three times a week with drugs that can sustain the patient is about 800 Ghana cedis. In a month, the patient would have spent a little over 3200 Ghana cedis. This is equivalent to the salary of about 600 chop bar attendants.

The pain of losing a loved one or a relative can be as piercing as a thorn in the flesh. Its economic and social implications to the nation are many and varied.