New renal unit saves the day for kidney patients

They contributed 157,000 towards the creation of the Springfield renal care unit at the town's war memorial hospital through its Friends charity.

Among the patients who have benefited from the unit was Pagham man Tony Granito.

The 55-year-old former mechanic suffered kidney failure four years ago and undergoes three four-hour dialysis sessions a week there.

He said: "It's good to have the service on my doorstep. Without it, I would have to use transport to get to Portsmouth and back.

"It's a ten-minute drive from my home to the unit and back again afterwards. With ten minutes to get me on the dialysis machine, and ten minutes afterwards, that's five hours in all.

"To have dialysis in Portsmouth would take about nine hours each time with all the waiting for the transport and the journeys.

"That makes a big difference to me. All you want to do when you have had dialysis is to get home. It's not nice waiting around afterwards."

Another touch to make the best of the situation is the provision of a TV for each patient in the new unit to help make the treatment go as quickly as possible.

The donation from the Friends paid for most of the construction work within the unit.

It formed the major part of the 260,000 cost of setting up the service in a previously empty detached building.

A partnership between West Sussex Primary Care Trust, which runs the hospital, and Portsmouth Hospitals NHS Trust, which runs the region's main dialysis service at Queen Alexandra Hospital, enabled the unit to open late last summer.

The service was previously based in a converted section of the hospital '“ with one TV for every three patients '“ within the main building.

This opened in November 1998 and looked after 36 patients a week. It was extended in May 2002 to cope with 60 patients.

The Springfield unit has increased that further to 68 weekly patients being treated on 14 fully equipped dialysis stations for renal consultants and their teams to use.

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