Wednesday, January 6, 2016

The Continuing Incidence of Kidney Disease in Ratmale

CKDU Chronic Kidney Disease with Unknown etiology kills more in one year than guns have in the past 5 years put together!


I had a doctor attached to the Medirigiriya Hospital specializing in Kidney Diseases visit me at my place this weekend.

I brought a 30 yr old boy, father of two who has been diagnosed with the first stage of Kidney Disease to speak with the Doc. Along with the file and instructions. He was given advice after questioning his past activity to determine the likely cause of his kidney problem with excess protein being secreted.

He had in the past sprayed paddy fields with pesticide without masks and gloves and they drink water from a well that two people had already died of kidney disease. A father and son (son was 42 when died) are both next door neighbors. He was advised to refrain from smoking and drinking as he must conserve his health and be able to battle this and win and hopefully reverse the onset.

So doctor said NOT to drink the water from that well, and NOT to use that water for cooking purposes either. He was advised, along with everyone in the household to get tested again, so they could eliminate that the others have got any symptoms of the onset of disease. He was advised to get the family to drink RO water (I presume this means Reverse Osmosis) being sold off of pick ups at about a rupee a liter.

He further advised that the GN of the area, contact the Divisional Secretariat with a request for the village and its 500 inhabitants to be given a RO water facility, usually place in a community center or temple, as there are donors, construction companies and the like who donate them, and it is the village who have to maintain the facility and it is to this end that the Rupee is charged, some can be as low as 25 cents, a charge nevertheless, both to stop waste and pay for the filters and consumables in cleaning the water.

He further said that the ONLY testing facility for water in the NCP which is in Anuradhapura is not functional and to see if the Govt. can do something to have it operational again, as otherwise we are unable to test the wells for heavy metals considered to be harmful when combined with pesticide and chemical fertilizer residue to result in the toxic by-products that appears to cause this CKDU though still completely not proven!


On the same day, I heard of another incidence of a person now at the end stage of CKDU, needing dialysis, which reminds me that the doctor said, that people are charged Rs3000 for a three wheel to take them to Polonnaruwa for dialysis along with almost a day’s wait once a week, a cost they can ill afford. 


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