Kidney Patient Guide

Greetings!

I am a Japanese female in my late 30s. I have been diabetic for about 30 years and also on dialysis (HD) for over a year. Thanks to dialysis, I got better recently and I would like to travel abroad in the near future again. Prior to the trips, I would like to collect much information on HD in various countries: How long the patients take it on average, how much it costs if a foreigner takes it in your country, or whatever. I would be happy if you could inform me of any details of HD in your country.

Hi Kaz: Hope you make it to Britain. It would be next to impossible to get dialysis in a UK hospital but, fortunately, there are many private clinics here, all listed in Eurodial, an international guide to dialysis clinics, obtainable from I.D.O. [International Dialysis Organisation] 9, Ruelle du Pont, 69390 Vernaison, France whose web address is www.Eurodial.org and to whom you could write at [email protected]

Never having had to pay for dialysis in the UK I do not know what they charge overseas patients but have heard that it is in the region of £300 per session. Pretty expensive!

Hi Kaz: it's me again. Or, more correctly, It is I, once more [I wouldn't want to lead you into the highways and byways of poor English!]. I forgot to add to my last posting that while patients vary in the time they spend on dialysis, the vast majority of dialysis patients are condemned to four hours. They don't even get time off for good behaviour!

http://www.globaldialysis.com/
is a further non-commercial resource for dialysis units..
Many NHS run UK Units do not accept holiday or travelling patients from other countries (mainly due to undercapacity, eg they are FULL UP) however there are quite a few private units that DO accept patients as well as those run by dialysis companies such as Baxter/Gambro etc.

Dialysis cost varies but is in the region of between 200 and 300 GBP (£100 is about ¥20'000)

As for the length of dialysis the average time is about 4 hours however this DOES depend on body size etc.. I've known patients to do between 2 and 6 hours in various cases.

Konnichiwa,
Unfortunately there is no reciprocal medical insurance plan between Australia and Japan. I am not sure how much will be charged here but I guess I would be expensive if I went to Japan too.
Please feel free to enquire further.

Hi, everyone!

Thanks for all of your replies: I'm really happy to have found them here this morning! I am taking HD for 5 hours, 3 days a week. In Japan, it seems that the patients take it for 4-5 hours on average. The cost is thankfully covered by national expenditure. I hear it's really expensive if we pay the cost by ourselves.

The webpages and the contact information you offered will help when I make trips abroad. Do you yourselves have any experience of traveling abroad while on HD? I would like to read more of your messages about HD or traveling abroad.