As a dialysis patient of the Community Dialysis Clinic in Abbotsford your article was bang-on. (Dialysis ‘not an optional service,’ says Chilliwack Mayor Sharon Gaetz, Progress, Jan. 24.)
The BC government and the FHA spokesman Roy Thorpe-Dorward are giving it their typical brush off and say it is not financially feasible to have a clinic in Chilliwack. For us dialysis patients it can be a life or death solution. A year ago I had serious kidney failure and was transported by ambulance to the Abbotsford Hospital dialysis floor (4th). Thanks to the great nephrologists (kidney specialists) and special nurses there I was brought back to (normal) life. I will be obligated to be on dialysis now every week for the rest of my days. Dialysis cleans the blood of harmful substances as the kidneys no longer can do their job and without dialysis the patient will die!
Thankfully, Morris – a patient on my ‘beat’ – and Elaina Wugalter are doing a great job to bring this serious issue to the public’s attention. You should do a feature again in the paper to let people know how many persons are afflicted with this disease. There is enough commercial real estate vacant in Chilliwack to solve this much needed situation.
The suggestion of the FHA to take taxis is laughable; does he know what taxis cost? Community drivers (volunteers) are costly too, my first trip last year, for one day cost me $62; multiply that by two or three times a week is financially not possible for people like myself.
Give your head a shake!
Alphonse Litjens
Chilliwack