17 kidney patients die due to lack of supplies and medications

Complicates the situation that do not have nephrologists 

Since January and until the beginning of the month, 17 patients have died in the José María Vargas Hospital in La Guaira due to lack of supplies, specialists and medicines such as antibiotics, which are needed for infections. 

Elsa de Sousa, a relative of a kidney patient, complained that due to abrupt power cuts they could not work in the hospital, since they have spent more than a day and a half without receiving dialysis and patients are left adrift because the plant Social Security does not have enough strength to keep the machines active. In the center there are approximately 8 machines damaged due to lack of spare parts. 

"Here patients bring their food and medicines." He reiterated that the high prices and scarcity of medicines, antibiotics and supplies generates a lack of control in the care they must take. In addition, the lack of reagents also puts them at risk because hemoglobin control tests can not be performed. 

He recalled that there is no disease of the kidney that leads patients to have dialysis, but arises as a result of different diseases such as diabetes, hypertension, obesity, smoking, as well as high cholesterol and triglycerides. These are silent diseases, which give symptoms after five to seven years when the cellular damage is already delicate. 

The kidneys filter approximately 180 liters of blood every day and remove about two liters of waste and excess water from the body through the urine. These are responsible for controlling blood pressure, stimulating the bone marrow to produce red blood cells and maintain the balance of all bodily functions.