Northern residents call for closer dialysis treatment options
Some residents of northern Saskatchewan are tired of traveling for dialysis appointments, and they’re petitioning for a treatment centre closer to home.
Mary Ruelling lives in La Loche, but throughout the week she and her son Dwayne, who’s waiting for a kidney transplant, travel for more than six hours to Saskatoon in order for him to receive his dialysis treatments. The family has been making the trips for the last year, she said, leading her to start circulating the petition through the North.
“There are no machines closer than North Battleford, and there’s a unit in Prince Albert, and there’s a unit at St. Paul’s in Saskatoon,” Ruelling said. “It’s not a fun place to be, because everyone wants to be at home doing their own thing close to family and friends.”
The dialysis process takes three to four hours, she said, and is extremely tiring for patients. Once the treatment is complete, she said her son sometimes has to wait three to four hours for a taxi to take him back home, a ride which lasts another six and a half hours.