Peritoneal dialysis is a treatment for kidney failure that uses the lining of the abdomen or belly to filter blood inside the body.

The starting cost for this treatment is 2,000 cedis. This is not affordable to the poor who visit the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital (KATH) for treatment.

The Rotary Club has donated items worth $7,500 to equip the health center with various medical equipment to aid in health delivery.

The items donated were wheelchairs, peritoneal dialysis tube catheter and other peritoneal dialysis kits.

The Rotary Club, supported by the family of the late Nana Adu Boakye donated these items to help patients who are unable to pay for the treatment.

President of Rotary Club of Kumasi-East, Nana K. Ayesu-Boahene was grateful to the family for their gesture and appealed to other philanthropists to support such initiatives to alleviate some of the hardships people go through.

“There are a lot of people out there who I believe are in better position than us, to assist in such cases. I would like to encourage people, to find the need to visit such places to help alleviate some of the hardship that parents and authorities, who are suppose to take care of this situation go through. I believe it will go a long way to make this country and the world a better place,’’ he appealed.

Dr. Anima Sarfo, the Head of Pediatrics Nephrology unit of the Child Health Directorate at KATH, was grateful for the gesture and appealed to the government to make acute and chronic dialysis treatment free for children.

“Most of the patients are unable to buy the kits because it’s quite expensive. Acute and chronic dialysis should be on the National Health Insurance Scheme for children, so that the cost can be easily absorbed” she said.

So far, 254 lives have been saved through peritoneal dialysis since its inception in 2011 at Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital.