Last Friday could well be 23 year-old Oneil White’s final visit to Kingston for dialysis treatment, unless he can find a good Samaritan in a hurry.

Oneil suffered kidney failure three years ago and must get treatment every week to rid his blood of killer toxins. But the weekly bill of $8,000 to travel and get treatment at the Diabetes Centre at Downer Avenue has left his mother depleted and there is little hope of her continuing to find the monthly $32,000 she has been setting aside since.

Assistance from relatives to help her foot the bill is drying up and Oneil’s mother, Yvonne White, tells the Sunday Observer that most of the money she makes from her small grocery shop in her rural village of Pennants, Clarendon goes to finance her son’s treatment.

“My family helps when they can but the shop is running down,” White moans. “His (Oneil’s) father does farming but the little money can’t go very far. I just can’t cope.”

Oneil, one of the 900 Jamaicans diagnosed with kidney failure each year, needs to go on the dialysis machine twice per week. A lapse of more than two weeks has dire consequences for the soft-spoken youngster who stays with friends in Kingston until the time of his appointment.

Every week, if finances allow, young Oneil travels over 50 miles from Pennants to the capital city for a four-hour hook up to the dialysis machine for a fee of $7,500. The May Pen Hospital is much closer but has no provisions for dialysis treatment.

And failure to perform this weekly ritual could leave Oneil seriously ill or worse. Just recently, he ended up at the University Hospital and virtually at death’s door because for two weeks the $8,000 to travel and have his blood cleansed could not be found.

“I get weak and I cannot see very well when I don’t go on the machine,” he tells the Sunday Observer.

The Kingston Public Hospital (KPH), University Hospital and Cornwall Regional are the only public hospitals with dialysis units. Treatment at KPH or University Hospital would be cheaper at about $5,500 but the chances that Oneil will ever be able to get treatment at either are extremely slim.

The only way he can get treatment is if one of the patients currently getting dialysis at either hospital dies or migrates, the Sunday Observer has learnt. And even then, treatment for Oneil is still unlikely, as there is a long list of patients waiting in line before him.

Both government-run hospitals in Kingston have approximately 156 patients on register for dialysis with about 65 at the Cornwall Regional in Montego Bay. The waiting list fluctuates, but is currently about 100 at University and KPH combined.

So a private health centre is Oneil’s only option, and his relatives will have to continue finding the funds, however they can, to keep him alive.

Donating a kidney to him, which is a cheaper option, appears out of the question. “I ask them but I don’t get any answer,” says Oneil. “I just have to ask again.”

The health sector can only offer dialysis treatment to only about a third of the estimated 900 diagnosed cases of kidney failure each year. According to professor of medicine and nephrology at University of the West Indies (UWI), Dr Everard Barton, the three public hospitals have the capacity to treat about 220 patients while another 100 patients could be accommodated in the seven private dialysis units – four in Kingston, another in Montego Bay and two in Mandeville.

“The sad reality is that most of the 900 persons diagnosed annually in Jamaica with kidney failure will die,” he discloses.

The UWI professor explains that while a kidney transplant is the better treatment and is cheaper than maintaining a patient on long-term dialysis, very few transplants are done in the island.

“We had two live donor transplants done abroad this year,” he says. “The relatives who donated the organs were living abroad and covered by insurance there.”

Kidney donors, both live and from cadavers (dead bodies), were very few in Jamaica, Barton says. The reticence was cultural, he says, adding that there is an ongoing drive to sensitise people to the problem.

Professor Barton insists that there are not enough dialysis units in Jamaica and that dialysis treatment is expensive, with each station costing US$27,000. There are 12 stations each at the KPH and University dialysis units.

Barton advocates a partnership between government and the private sector to keep the cost of treating each kidney patient in check.

“What we need are more machines in Jamaica and a joint corporation between government and the private sector,” Barton says.

In addition, he is not happy that the Government’s National Health Fund, designed to provide better does not cover dialysis treatment.

“Three years ago, representation was made by the Kidney Support Foundation, but we haven’t heard anything since,” he complains.

The situation is compounded by the unavailability of trained dialysis nurses, Barton adds. He points out that the nurses receive specialised training but many were recruited by overseas interests who offered much more than the local sector could afford.