About Kidney Disease

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Why are Kidneys important?

Kidneys play a very important and essential role in your body. Some of their functions include:

• Regulating water levels
• Removing harmful waste
• Producing hormones and regulating blood pressure

Every 24hrs around 200 litres of blood has to be filtered by the kidneys. Roughly 198 litres are recovered and 2 litres of waste and extra water is removed from the body in the form of urine.

What is kidney disease?

Kidney disease describes a variety of diseases and disorders which affect the kidneys. Most kidney diseases attack the filtering units of the kidneys – the nephrons – and damage their ability to eliminate waste and excess fluids.

Kidney failure is when the kidneys are no longer able to function as required to clean the blood properly from waste and harmful fluids.

If the kidneys are not able to clean the blood properly waste products and fluid can build up to dangerous levels in your body. This may mean that a person can develop complications like high blood pressure, anemia (low blood count), weak bones, poor nutritional health and nerve damage. Also, kidney disease can increase the risk of having a heart attack and blood vessel disease.

Currently there is no cure for kidney failure. The only way for people to survive is by having a machine artificially perform the role of the kidney and remove the harmful and toxic waste products and excess water from the blood.

How does Dialysis work and how often it is needed?

Dialysis is an artificial procedure that replaces normal kidney functions when a person’s kidneys can no longer function to maintain life.

During the procedure, a tube is attached to a needle in the arm of the patient. Blood then passes through the tube and into an external machine which filters the blood. It then passed back into the patient’s arm along another tube.

This is usually carried out 2-3 times a week with each session lasting around 4 hours.

Why do we need your support?

In Pakistan, the prevalence of kidney failure is reported to be in between 12.5% to 31.2%. Kidney failure is becoming a major issue for the local community, as the incidence and prevalence of kidney disease has continually increased over the last three decades. It is a more and more frequently diagnosed illness amongst the youth in Pakistan. Despite this alarming statistic, only 10% of patients with kidney failure are in a financial position to undergo dialysis.

Every kidney dialysis on average costs £10 per session. With every patient requiring dialysis 2-3 days a week it costs £120 every month to give one patient the treatment they need to stay alive.

Most people in Pakistan earn less than £200 per month and even after selling everything they own they cannot afford the treatment they so desperately need to stay alive. Without the money to pay for their treatment they are turned away from the local and national hospitals. They need our Treatment Centre to survive and without your support we cannot save them.

Save a life today.