The Ministry of Health (MOH) stated that it has provided dialysis services to a number of 10,144 patients (representing 66% of the total number of cases in all health sectors in the Kingdom) over the past year.
It pointed out that it secured 128 artificial kidney centers (at a rate of 67% of the total number of centers in the Kingdom), encompassing 3,828 dialysis devices (at a rate of 66% of the total number of such devices at all hospitals of the health sectors in the Kingdom).
It went on adding that the number of those undergoing peritoneal dialysis at the MOH’s hospitals amounted to 651 patients during the aforementioned period. Besides, the total number of the artificial dialysis centers at all health sectors amounted to 190, the total number of dialysis devices amounted to 5,800, the number of patients undergoing hemodialysis in the kingdom amounted to 15,371, and the number of patients undergoing peritoneal dialysis amounted to 1,515 at all health sectors.
The MOH also indicated that the total number of outpatients at kidney transplant clinics throughout the health sectors amounted to 8,461, of whom 1,911 outpatients at the MOH’s hospitals.
Within the same vein, the MOH underlined that the chronic nephritis is the gradual loss of kidney functions, occurring when the kidney is too damaged to purify the blood from toxins or dispose wastes as it should do. This will lead to toxic accumulation in the body, and thus there will be serious implications for human health.
The MOH added that the kidney functions include cleaning the blood of wastes, getting rid of toxins through urine, and discharging extra water of the body. The kidney functions, also, play a role in regulating the secretion of certain hormones. The chronic nephritis is so difficult to be detected; due to developing slowly over months or years. Therefore, the person will not show any symptoms, except after reaching advanced stages of the disease that affected the kidney functions dramatically. These symptoms include shortage in the kidney functions, decreased urine output than normal, fluid retention in the tissues of the body, and the patient feeling of fatigue, appetite loss, nausea, and insomnia.
Finally, the MOH highlighted that the main causes of kidney impact on the incidence of diabetes, hypertension, chronic nephritis, renal artery stenosis are using certain medications that affect kidney for very long period of time, congenital renal anomalies, and kidney stones. The disease can be diagnosed by means of blood tests to determine the blood urea nitrogen (BUN) (mg/dL) and serum creatinine (Cr) (mg/dL), urine test, X-rays, computed tomography (CT) scans, and renal endoscopy.