What the foundation is doing, what it is planning, and what we are learning about kidney care in Uganda.
The renal clinic and haemodialysis programme has been running under SAS Lweza Clinic in Seguku. It is now being constituted as a foundation in its own right, with its own registration, its own board and its own accounts.
SAS Lweza Clinic remains the clinical partner where treatment is delivered. The foundation raises and applies the funds that pay for subsidised treatment.
Kidney failure is often spoken about as a final verdict. In many cases it is not. Acute kidney injury can resolve, and kidney function can recover, when the cause is found and treated early. Chronic kidney disease caught in its earlier stages can be slowed, and in many patients dialysis is never reached.
The outcome depends on how early a person reaches care. The foundation funds screening in the community alongside the dialysis programme.
Anyone with concerns about their kidneys should speak to the clinic on +256 760 516 815.
The foundation is planning community education events on kidney health, covering the causes of kidney disease, the warning signs, and where to go for screening.
Organisations and community groups who would like to host one can contact the foundation.
The foundation is seeking sponsors, corporate and individual, for the dialysis programme, and counts that sponsorship in treatments rather than in totals. Forty dollars sponsors one dialysis session for a patient in need, one hundred and twenty dollars sponsors weekly sessions, and four hundred and eighty dollars sponsors monthly sessions.
The foundation also intends to approach the Kidney Foundation of Uganda about working together on screening and public education. No agreement is in place at this stage.
Forty dollars pays for one session for a patient who cannot meet the cost.