The Minister of Health Dr. Hamad Al-Mane will launch today evening the activities of the National Therapeutic Home Care Program for Chronic Diseases. The event will be held at the Hall of Ceremonies, Four Season hotel, said MOH Director General of Medical Supply Dr. Khalid Al-Husain. He said the program aims at providing comprehensive care to kidney failure patients, including case evaluation, training patients for enabling them to acquire the necessary skills and experience to control the disease, and providing treatment in accordance to the latest medical findings.
Dr. Al-Husain said in a press statement that the program's main aim is to provide home treatment by peritoneal dialysis for kidney failure patients. He said such goal cannot be achieved unless certain basic necessities for treatment and training are made available for both patients and medical teams. "Such necessities are vital for enabling patients to make use of provided treatment", he said.
He said kidney failure is a chronic and dangerous disease, which has shown worldwide spreading, especially in advanced countries.
"The latest official report made by the Saudi Center for Organ Transplantation in 2006 has estimated the number of kidney failure patients in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to be 17705 patients", he said. "Of those, 8172 patients have been subject to kidney transplantation, 8761 patients provided renal haemodialysis, whereas 772 patients were provided peritoneal dialysis".
According to Dr. Al-Husain, MOH has provided both types of treatment to 6380 patients, most of them by renal haemodialysis. The net prevalence rate of the disease was 5,12% in 2006. The number of patients provided peritoneal dialysis was 264 in the same year, representing only 9,3% of the total number of kidney failure patients undergoing treatment.