The progressive improvement with dialysis treatment over the years has not only been better access to care, it has also meant a significant decrease in the cost of treatments.

Fiji’s only Nephrologist and Director for the first public medical facility of its kind here, National Kidney Research and Dialysis centre Dr. Amrish Krishnan says while it’s taken some time, Kidney Health is on the right track.

“You know in the past, we couldn’t do dialysis in our Intensive Care Unit so we had very limited access to that and we’ve been able to achieve that and now most of the patients who develop acute kidney failure are able to access that treatment for free, so once we strengthened that, we moved on to supporting our chronic patients.”

With three point five million dollars being provided by government as a subsidy, more Fijians affected by kidney failure will now be able to get affordable treatment provided they meet the criteria.

“When the income threshold is less than 30 thousand dollars, their dialysis will be subsidized to seventy five dollars per session whereas those earning more than 30 thousand dollars will do doing about one hundred and fifty dollars a session.”

Around 550 Fijians reportedly die annually as result of kidney failure and their inability to get treatment or undergo an organ transplant.