Eight years on and still no Dialysis Unit on Nevis
CHARLESTOWN, NEVIS, February 13, 2022 (Nevis Reformation Party) — Leader of the
Nevis Reformation Party (NRP) Dr. Janice Daniel-Hodge is taking the government on Nevis to
task for failing to deliver dialysis care for patients on the island of Nevis who suffer from kidney
failure.
A guest on ‘Your Voice with the NRP’ on Monday (Feb. 07) on VON Radio, Dr. Daniel-Hodge
said “it’s painful knowing that we already had dialysis equipment here and just like other
projects, it just left, and so the question must be asked ‘on what basis does a government make a
decision when you know that your citizens are struggling and the level of cost that they must
incur for dialysis treatment.”
Some eight years ago, in November 2014, the CCM-led Nevis Island Administration (NIA)
promised the people of Nevis that the matter of dialysis is firmly fixed to their “to do” list.
“I want to commit as Minister of Health and commit the government, tonight, to the Renal
Society and to the Nevisian public, that the issue of dialysis remains firmly fixed on our ‘to do’
list and that we would hope to have that become a reality in the coming year,” said Mark
Brantley who was Deputy Premier and Minister of Health in 2014.
Earlier that year on April 09, Brantley said “dialysis is not something that you can stop and start.
It is something where once you say to people you have the service, then you have to be able to
stand behind it…” He added: “we have been scoring the world…I want to say to the public that it
has been at least a weekly engagement. We have engaged with people…We have had
conversations with dialysis centers in America.”
Dr. Daniel-Hodge assured the people of Nevis that an NRP-led Nevis Island Administration will
deliver quality healthcare and will make the procurement of a Magnetic Resonance Imaging
(MRI) machine and Dialysis Machines top priority.
In 2012, the NRP who was in government at the time, purchased a Dialysis Unit which consisted
of two dialysis machines, a water treatment plant, two patient centric chairs, examination room
and a nursing station. It was secured at a cost of $US214,000. The Dialysis Unit was assembled
in Israel and arrived in Nevis on April 01, 2013 but to date, has not been set up.
