7 News Belize

Kidney Failure, Contending With A Community Crisis
posted (January 24, 2019)

If you’re in touch with anyone in your community, you’ll know that kidney failure is more widespread than ever.

That’s why three years ago, the Governments of Belize and Taiwan launched the Capacity Building Project for the Prevention and Control of Chronic Renal Failure in Belize.

The project is coming to an end, and today they organized a major forum to discuss lessons learned:

It’s called the forum on Chronic Kidney Disease - the culmination of a three year Taiwanese led project focusing on early detection and prevention of kidney disease - as well as data gathering and training for early intervention:

Dr. Ramon Figueroa - CEO, Ministry of Health
"The tangible is the capacity building, the training of our physicians, having more hemodialysis nurse because when we started the process, we had very few. There were very few people who were trained; I think at one time there was one nurse that was certified and trained in hemodialysis. We have 17 nurses that have been certified and accredited to be dialysis nurse. We have physicians now that are trained in early detection and early management; we have community health workers that have been trained. So I think the development of the human resource capacity is one of the most important things that this project leaves with us.

"We’ve done a community survey, national community survey, trained community health workers. We've gathered a wealth of information. We're building up a module within the Belize Health Information System that will allow our facilities and our medical personnel to identify those people who are at early stages of kidney damage and so we can do proper interventions.â€￾

And, so far, the studies show that those interventions are most needed in the north - and among women:

Dr. Ramon Figueroa
"We know women are more vulnerable or at least show a higher prevalence of renal damage, up north was one of the areas we identified where more people demonstrated information that they have renal damage. It's worrisome that you have a lot of people actually early on having already evidence that there is kidney malfunction. It's not surprising that diabetes and hypertension because it's been shown in the literature reported diabetes and hypertension are very important risk factors. We also know that diabetes is pretty prevalent in Belize. So it's not surprising in a sense."

And, to arrest it a lot of the effort depends on the individual’s initiative to choose a healthy lifestyle:

Dr. Ramon Figueroa
"But then eventually it sinks in that if you don't change your nutrition patterns, you will end up with some of the suffering you see around you that other people are going through. So in essence basically, it's a big challenge, it's a cultural issue but it can be modified but it has to be sustained.â€￾

It's tragic when somebody has to be plugged into a machine 4-5 hours, 3 times a week for the rest of your life. So if we can prevent and it's not only the financial aspect, saving suffering for many of the people and the disruption of the family and their economy, if we can prevent that i think that's - all the work and investment is worth that."

And while the project engenders good public health policy and practice, at the end of the day there’s that human element which makes the outcome unpredictable.

Jules Vasquez
"Down the road because of this project will there verifiably, can you say with certainty we will have fewer cases of end stage renal failure because of the practices and the data that we have picked up from this exercise?â€￾

Dr. Ramon Figueroa
"I will say that is exactly what we want to achieve."

The project was supposed to end in February, but it has been extended for 5 more months to implement an information module which gathers field data. 

Overall, the project cost 2 million US dollars.

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