New dialysis unit set for next year

A new Springfield dialysis unit is being created at the town's war memorial hospital next year.

This will handle up to 68 patients from around West Sussex to receive their life- saving treatment.

It will provide an alternative to the lengthy and time-consuming journey to Portsmouth which some of them currently have to endure three times a week.

Building work should start next February and end three months later.

The 157,000 cost of most of the construction work is being provided by the hospital's Friends volunteers.

They have joined with the Wessex renal and transplant unit at Queen Alexandra Hospital in Portsmouth and the war memorial hospital's operator, West Sussex Primary Care Trust, to get the project started.

Friends' Chairman Ted Chandler said: 'I am very pleased we are able to support this scheme.

'Setting up the original Springfield dialysis unit was the finest thing the Friends have ever done.

'But there are so many people from this area who need that service.

'There is the need for at least another five machines. There is nowhere to put them in the present unit.

'We couldn't afford this work without the wonderful support we get from people. We couldn't spend the money if they didn't give it to us.'

Mr Chandler said the Friends took so much pleasure in helping renal patients because being treated closer to their homes meant they could have more time to get on with the rest of their lives.

'Some of them have to leave home at 5.30am by ambulance to get on to a machine at Portsmouth at 8.30am for three-and-a-half hours. They then have to repeat that journey in the afternoon and that's their day gone,' he stated.

The new dialysis unit will provide more comfortable surroundings with better facilities such as televisions.

Extra clinic space will also be provided in the new unit to enable the renal consultants and their teams to see patients locally. Space will be available as well for future growth in services. Carol Gareze, the director of primary and community care at the trust, said the development was a sign of its commitment to looking after people in their local area.

'The trust is committed to providing care closer to peoples' homes.

'This exciting development allows more patients to receive their treatment locally.'

Existing patients will continue to use the current unit until the new facilities are opened.

The Friends' biggest project was to raise 440,000 to completely revamp the rheumatology department at Bognor's hospital to mark their 50th anniversary in 2003.