Sion hospital expands services with new dialysis centre in Dharavi

The centre will operate on a public-private model. Representation pic

After expanding its CT scan, MRI, and sonography facilities at Chota Sion hospital in Dharavi, Sion hospital is now set to establish a dialysis centre at the same location.

The centre will operate on a public-private partnership model. According to Dr Mohan Joshi, the dean at Sion hospital, "We have already acquired some dialysis machines, and the RO plant installation is pending." However, he reassured that it will be up and running within the next two or three months.

Currently, the hospital's 17 dialysis machines are operating at full capacity, even extending services until midnight due to high demand. A staff member at the hospital said, "Patients from Chota Sion hospital are often referred to the main Sion hospital as there are no dialysis machines available there."

Apart from Sion hospital, dialysis facilities are only accessible at KEM and Nair hospitals. Consequently, patients from other hospitals seeking civic-run health facilities are redirected to these three hospitals. In April, the state-run Saint George's Hospital also decided to initiate an in-house dialysis service centre with ten machines.

Nephrologist Dr Shrirang Bichu emphasised the critical consequences of missing a dialysis session. Nair hospital has a total of 20 dialysis stations, with 12,118 dialysis sessions provided to 1,440 patients in the last year.

Dr Sudhir Medhekar, the dean at Nair hospital, said, "They handle a significant workload of acute kidney failure cases, which limits their capacity to offer maintenance hemodialysis to chronic kidney failure (CKD) patients." The dean of KEM hospital was unavailable for comment.