MOUNT SALEM, St James — More kidney patients will now be able to access treatment at the Haemodialysis Unit of the Cornwall Regional Hospital (CRH) as a result of the donation of four dialysis machines and essential medical supplies from a humanitarian group in the United States.

The items, valued at more than US$250,000 (approximately $9.5 million), were handed over to the hospital on Thursday.

The Haemodialysis Unit Manager Leset Stephenson, who has served in the department for the past 20 years, knows the suffering patients go through.

“It will assist at least an additional 25 [patients]. We work from Mondays to Fridays, [and] you are talking about at least 50 treatments for the week — and we do have patients out there who are waiting, waiting to get on the system because they just cannot afford the private dialysis. It costs a lot, not only for the treatment but the medications that go along with it,” stated Stephenson, who is hoping others will see the need and assist the hospital.

She said the department currently has 15 machines but can accommodate 21.

“The space is there for these four machines. As soon as we can get them up and running, we will be utilising them. We also have a high-dependency unit for the critical patients who are on ventilator support… So we still need an additional two,” revealed Stephenson.

She said the hospital has patients from as far as Savanna-la-Mar, Mandeville, Kingston, and Portland.

The importance of the donation was also shared by the hospital’s administrator, Tamara Bernard.

The donation was presented by president of the Jamaica Awareness Association of California and Montego Bay native Patrick Williams, during a brief ceremony in the hospital’s administrative department.

Other partners who made the donation possible are the Alliance of American and Jamaican Humanitarian (AOJAH), the California Cricket Club (CCC), and others as part of their Hurricane Melissa relief initiatives for Jamaica.

The donation, prompted by the devastation caused by last October’s Category 5 storm, represents a coordinated effort to save lives and increase access for patients who otherwise cannot afford critical treatment.

The dialysis units were originally donated by Kaiser Permanente Medical Group to AOJAH under the leadership of Joan Crawford. The California-based group then managed the complex logistics of transporting the equipment to Jamaica.

Williams, in emphasising the importance of the life-saving equipment, argued that many people are unable to access dialysis treatment due to a lack of available machines or financial constraints.

“[We] know that it will be of great benefit to those who cannot afford it, and we want to help save lives. We’re not trying to just improve, but we want to save lives,” he stressed.

While CRH received the bulk of the dialysis units, Spanish Town Hospital was also a recipient. Williams explained that although Savanna-la-Mar was initially considered, the decision was made to donate to CRH because most of the people from Savanna-la-Mar travel to CRH to access care.

In addition to the dialysis machines the group distributed medical supplies to several other facilities, including Savanna-la-Mar Public General Hospital, Noel Holmes Hospital, Falmouth Public General Hospital, the Falmouth Infirmary, and Spanish Town Hospital.