World Kidney Day-2025
Dr Ngopelo Keviechu
SMO District Hospital Phek
Every year the second Thursday of March is observed as World Kidney Day (WKD). This year, it falls on the 13th of March (Thursday) and the theme for this year is “Are Your Kidneys OK?, Detect Early, Protect Kidney Health”. World Kidney Day observations raise awareness throughout the year of kidney health, prevention and equitable access to care.
It is observed that Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD) has increased significantly in India in the past five years. Though there is no recorded data available of our state Nagaland about the actual burden of kidney disease, but from the number of kidney failure patients registered and undergoing regular maintenance hemodialysis at various Dialysis Centres, both government and private is increasing day by day. The Indian Society of Nephrology has rightly suggested that chronic kidney disease should be included as one of the epidemics in India.
Some of the common causes of Chronic Kidney disease leading to kidney failure are Diabetes, Chronic Hypertension, a genetic factor or a rare disease. India leads in Obesity, Hypertension and Diabetes. Painkillers medicines which are easily available as over the counter drugs are often abused, misused which can cause significant damage to the kidneys and this adds on to the burden of kidney disease. There is a need to strictly regulate the sale of these medicines. It is noted that people in stage 1 and stage 2 kidney disease rapidly deteriorated down to stage 5 in a couple of months due to ingestion of heavy metals often contained in the some of the alternative medicines.
eGFR is a test used to assess how well the kidneys are working. Depending on the value of calculated eGFR , kidney disease is graded from stage-1 to stage-5. An eGFR lower than 15 is considered as End Stage Kidney Disease (Kidney Failure). By the Stage-5 CKD a patient requires Renal Replacement Therapy (RRT) which can be Peritoneal Dialysis (this can be done at home by a trained care giver) or Haemodialysis through Dialysis Machines which are done at the hospital. Peritoneal Dialysis or Haemodialysis serves as a bridge before the kidney transplantation which is the definite treatment for the kidney failure. With a suitable donor kidney transplantation far more improves the quality of life than continuing on Haemodialysis or Peritoneal dialysis.
In the early stage of the kidney disease, patients don’t present with any symptoms, so it goes un-noticed that a person is suffering from kidney disease. In most cases the starting complains are tiredness, fatigue, loss of appetite, swelling of feet and facial puffiness. On checking the blood pressure (B.P) most of these patients will have very high B.P. These clinical findings are correlated with kidney function blood test report showing increased blood urea and serum creatinine which are the waste products excreted from the body by the kidney. So as this year’s theme suggest, one must be conscious of our kidneys health and go for routine screening test for early detection.
Many patients of kidney failure refused to go for haemodialysis due to the financial burden to the family as it is expensive to continue dialysis sessions after sessions. For adequate dialysis most of the patients requires thrice in a week dialysis and cannot afford.
Under the Pradhan Mantri National Dialysis Program(PMNDP) which was rolled out on 07th April 2016 as part of the National Health Mission (NHM) for the provision of free dialysis services to the poor, it has made a major impact in health care service delivery for kidney failure patients . Launched in all 36 states and UT across 748 districts with 1594 Dialysis Centres made functional ,11011 Haemodialysis Machines were installed, 26.91 Lakhs patients availed dialysis services and 323.67 Lakhs hemodialysis sessions held.
Under this PMNDP, Dialysis Centre at District Hospital Phek is the 5th District in Nagaland to be inaugurated and made operational on this day the 13th March 2025 coinciding with the observation of World Kidney Day.
