Speakers at a roundtable on Saturday stressed forging a comprehensive effort to prevent alarming kidney disease through raising awareness among people, to avert the fatal and harmful impact of the disease in families, society and nation.
It is mentioned that more than 85 crore people globally are affected by kidney disease. Every year about 1 crore and 30 lakhs people get affected by Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD) of which 85 percent is in developing countries like Bangladesh.
In Bangladesh, about two crore people are suffering from various kidney related diseases and only 10 percent of them can afford the costly treatment. Kidney Awareness Monitoring and Prevent Society (KAMPS), a voluntary and non-profit organisation organised the roundtable titled, 'Kidney Health for All: Ensuring Equal Rights for Better Treatment," at the National Press Club in the capital.
Mentioning that health insurance could be launched in ensuring rights of health care facilities for the patients who are deprived of opportunities, renowned doctor and private physician of the Prime Minister, Prof. Dr. ABM Abdullah said although there are limitations here, it is available in many countries worldwide.
Referring to a proposal and demand of KAMPS Chairman, Prof Dr. MA Samad to run an insurance scheme named “Sheikh Hasina Kidney Protection Insurance,’ Prof Abdullah said, it’s a good idea, as the Prime Minister always thinks about the betterment and wellbeing of common people or poor people, she may kindly consider it.
“Diabetes, High Blood Pressure both may cause kidney problems, and all these are silent killers. But, these diseases could be prevented through raising awareness among people very effectively,” Prof. Abdullah added.
Prof. Dr. Md. Robed Amin, Line Director of Non-Communicable Disease Control (NCDC), DGHS, while addressing said that there is an acute shortage of kidney specialists in the country, so scope of treatment for kidney diseases, dialysis etc. is less, and highly expensive.
“In the developed countries, even in our neighboring countries there are community dialysis systems; they have a huge number of dialysis units. There is no system to get a license for a dialysis center separately in our country because a license must be taken along with a clinic or hospital. So I think policy needs to change in this regard, so that someone can take license separately for a dialysis center, and it will contribute to spreading the scope of dialysis facilities everywhere in the country” Prof. Robed added.
KAMPS arranged the roundtable as part of its series of programmes marking the 'World Kidney Day 2024' to be observed on March 14 (Thursday).
“Currently, kidney disease is known to be a pandemic in the world. It is a silent killer. Kidney disorder treatment is extremely expensive. Therefore, awareness should be given priority to prevent kidney diseases and to ensure life with healthy kidneys” speakers said.
Chairman of KAMPS and chief consultant of Kidney Department of Anwar Khan Modern Hospital Prof Dr MA Samad presented the keynote paper on the occasion.
Prof. Samad proposed that an insurance scheme could be run named "Sheikh Hasina Kidney Protection Insurance”, to bring the helpless poor kidney patients under treatment facilities.
In his keynote speech, Prof Dr MA Samad stressed that firstly it needs formulating policy for widespread coverage of massive awareness-raising programmes across the country, mainly targeting to prevent kidney disease, and then ensuring equal rights for better treatment and ensuring access to the treatment facilities for all the kidney failure patients irrespective of them being rich or poor.
National Professor, Dr AK Azad Khan, Chairman of Kidney Foundation, Prof. Dr. Harun or Rashid, Chief Selector of Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB), Ghazi Ashraf Hossain Lipu, Prof. Dr. Anwar Hossain, President, Pediatric Nephrology Society of Bangladesh, Prof. Dr. Harisul Haque, Professor of BSMMU and General Secretary of KAMPS, Executive, Director of the KAMPS, Rezwan Salehin also spoke on the occasion among others.
