More than one hundred people are currently on dialysis treatment in Fiji.

However, according to Kidney specialist Dr Amrish Krishnan, there are more than one thousand people in the country who need dialysis but are not able to afford it.

Dr Krishnan says with a lot of people needing dialysis treatment in the country, the opening of the National Kidney and Research Treatment Center is expected to make the treatment more affordable next year.

“It will have all elements of kidney care so it will have hemodialysis and we are going to introduce another type of dialysis called peritoneal dialysis where this fluid is put into the abdominal cavity or the tummy and it is drained out and this modality of dialysis treatment can be actually done in home setting so that is the second modality that we will offer. We will have the pre-transplant counseling and pre-transplant evaluation service and then we have chronic kidney diseases clinic.”

Dr. Krishnan says the center will not be only limited to dialysis treatment.