| Varun Khanna and Dr Haresh Dodeja opened the painting exhibition and the Kidney Mela |
Fortis Hospital, Mulund, Mumbai bought in World Kidney Day with the launch of the Fortis Kidney Support Group. The launch took place a day before World Kidney Day which is on March 14, 2013. The support group aims to help kidney ailment patients by providing a platform to share their treatment and lifestyle experiences, and learn from them. The Support Group will also have kidney experts from Fortis Hospital who will lead and support the group in managing their conditions and leading a healthy lifestyle, reported a release.
The hospital informed that it is taking an initiative to provide certain benefits on consultations and investigations for the patients and thus encourage early diagnosis and evaluation. The group intends to bring together patients for moral support to each other and encourage participation in improving lives of these patients by various activities. It is expected to help patients and their families to share and care for each other.
On the ocassion of the launch, as part of the Kidney Mela, an exhibition of 30 paintings of kidney patients was organised at the hospital premises. The paintings narrated the real-life aspirations of the talented patients currently undergoing kidney-related treatments.
The paintings exhibition and the Kidney Mela were opened to the public by Varun Khanna, Regional Director (East & West), Fortis Healthcare, and Dr Haresh Dodeja, Consulting Nephrologist & Transplant Physician, Fortis Hospital, Mulund. The Kidney Mela saw stalls on kidney disease/ haemodialysis/peritoneal dialysis/diet/transplant/and a screening camp for patients, in addition to the painting exhibition.
Khanna said, “At Fortis Hospitals, we strongly believe in our patients and the difficulties faced by them during treatment for which we go all out in extending the encouragement and support to them. The kidney mela and exhibition are such initiatives in this direction. The event is aimed at not only educating the public on various aspects of kidney health but also in helping the patients recover faster and lead a healthy life.”
Dr S Narayani, Facility Director, Fortis Hospital, Mulund said, “Renal ailment is one such area where both the patients and their families face difficult times ahead. Through the Kidney Mela, exhibition and the support groups, we hope to increase awareness amongst the patients and give them a sense of assurance that such ailments are easily curable. The hospital, in their endeavour to promote early diagnosis and care for such patients, has committed to provide consultation and labs at a concessional rate. We at Fortis conduct more than a 1000 dialysis every month, and will increase our capacity by 40 per cent in April”.
Dr Haresh Dodeja, Consulting Nephrologist, Fortis Hospital, Mulund said “The aim is to create awareness amongst the general population about kidney disease and for this we have asked our dialysis patients to share their experiences on kidney related diseases. Another idea of staging this mela is to distribute information on various aspects of kidney disease in a more informal way and through the paintings that these patients have created.”
Elaborating on the nature of kidney ailments, Dr Dodeja said that more than 10 per cent of hospital admissions will have kidney disease, and in an intensive care unit, acute kidney injury will develop in more than 25- 50 per cent cases and most cases of infections may require dialysis as well.”
At Fortis, there are renal cases, both mild and serious, in nature. Fortis Healthcare’s Centres of Excellence for Renal Sciences offer specialist medical and surgical treatments for andrological, urological, and nephrological conditions requiring dialysis and transplant services for both adults and children.
EH News Bureau