Celebrating the transfer of operational management of renal services from Townsville Hospital and Health Service to the North West Hospital and Health Service (NWHHS), staff and board members along with invited guests will have a morning tea.
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The celebration is in the middle of Kidney Health Week (8 - 14 April), which the NWHHS Chief Executive, Lisa Davies Jones said is very timely.
"Transferring renal services back to our control will give us much more scope and funding to deliver renal services closer to home, not just in Mount Isa, but in our remote communities with the greatest level of need, such as Mornington Island, Normanton and Doomadgee, where renal disease is a very real challenge.
"We have been working toward this for years, starting in 2015 by doubling the shifts at the Mount Isa Renal Unit, thereby doubling the number of patients we could dialyse. That resulted in some patients being able to move back to Mount Isa from Townsville.
"We continued to work on our plan to repatriate renal services to NWHHS control, and we achieved that late last year.
"As well as giving us responsibility for the coordination and management of the Mount Isa satellite haemodialysis unit, we also gained responsibility for the coordination and management of the renal home therapy service.
"This has required a staged transition while we recruit and build the capacity required to treat people in their own homes and in remote community hospitals where we plan to offer health worker supported dialysis," Ms Davies Jones said.
The Renal Unit is moving to three dialysis sessions per day, which will support an additional 12 patients to be treated closer to home, Ms Davies Jones said.
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