Turner: Dialysis patients suffer for want of two-weeks of training for nurses

United Future deputy leader Judy Turner today asked Associate Health Minister Pete Hodgson in Parliament why it was ever necessary for kidney patients to be presenting at Wellington Hospital bloated, yellow and collapsing on dialysis machines, with the excuse of staff shortages.

Citing the cases of several dialysis patients, Mrs Turner said it was all the more unacceptable that the further training required by a nurse would be a matter of a few weeks at the most to have them ready to do dialysis work

“Dialysis patients with no medical background are given the necessary skills to treat themselves at home in just six weeks, which makes the fact that these patients have been suffering cut dialysis hours and arrangements that change week to week because of staff shortages, absolutely outrageous,” she said.

“It’s a weak bureaucratic answer to a very painful and debilitating situation that these dialysis patients have been in, and frankly, when the training involved is so short, it’s very difficult to buy such excuses.

“They have had a considerable time to address this and to this point nothing effective seems to have been done. It’s quite disgraceful,” she said.

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