doubling its dialysis unit capacity<\/a> in 2023. <\/p>\n![\"Tauranga]()
Tauranga Hospital’s renal unit is over-capacity. Photo \/ Kelly O’Hara<\/p>\n
On Monday this week, Penman said she was \u201csurprised\u201d but \u201cvery happy\u201d to access dialysis in Tauranga. Her first session there was on Saturday.<\/p>\n
The \u201cgame-changer\u201d result meant she could go to a Saturday family lunch.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s all those times that you want to spend with your family \u2026 and the massive difference it makes.\u201d<\/p>\n
Penman said she lives with her son. She has two other Tauranga-based children and two grandchildren.<\/p>\n
Although she did not think she could get her old job back, \u201cI\u2019ll definitely start looking again\u201d.<\/p>\n
Kidney Health New Zealand general manager Madi Keay said diabetes and high blood pressure were the leading causes of kidney disease nationally.<\/p>\n
![\"Kidney]()
Kidney Health New Zealand general manager Madi Keay.<\/p>\n
When diabetes was unmanaged, the additional high blood sugar could cause damage to tiny vessels, including those in the kidneys, Keay said.<\/p>\n
\u201cOnce you\u2019re in kidney failure, your options are dialysis, transplantation or death.\u201d<\/p>\n
She believed a lack of screening in primary care and a focus on prevention contributed to growing demand for dialysis.<\/p>\n
\u201cListening to stories like Tui\u2019s, I think everyone in that position would wish that they had been given the opportunity to preserve their kidney function earlier \u2026 \u201d<\/p>\n
Plans to increase Whakat\u0101ne haemodialysis capacity <\/p>\n
Health NZ Bay of Plenty operations group director Sarah Fenwick said increasing access to haemodialysis services closer to home was a priority.<\/p>\n
Fenwick said the Tauranga and Whakat\u0101ne units were operating at capacity.<\/p>\n
The Tauranga unit treated 56 patients across 14 chairs and Whakat\u0101ne treated 24 patients across six chairs weekly.<\/p>\n
Health NZ was planning to increase haemodialysis availability in Whakat\u0101ne to allow for an additional eight patients per week.<\/p>\n
Seven Eastern Bay patients were travelling to Tauranga, and five Western Bay patients were travelling to Waikato for dialysis services, Fenwick said.<\/p>\n
The numbers fluctuated and were lower than in recent periods, however, the longer-term trend reflected growing demand for haemodialysis services, she said.<\/p>\n
Fenwick said Health NZ was developing a renal dialysis plan to help address gaps and improve equitable access to services nationally.<\/p>\n
This included assessing where future dialysis capacity was needed most, workforce and infrastructure requirements, and how services could be strengthened in rural and high-demand communities.<\/p>\n
Fenwick said Health NZ was also exploring opportunities for earlier intervention and targeted screening in high-risk populations to support better kidney health outcomes.<\/p>\n
Megan Wilson<\/a> is a health and general news reporter for the Bay of Plenty Times and the Rotorua Daily Post. She has been a journalist since 2021.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cWe\u2019re barely coping \u2026 “ She believed she probably could have kept working if she could be treated…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":448444,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[21045,51125,17517,16717,29385,12509,31742,174113,124,537,4731,31143,86494,7191,43345,811,2082,8223,13800,228479,2241,2255,101,228480,102536,3234,6178,70933,111,43,139,69,17177,1597,228478,423,228481,1560,766,312,13109,131763,4758,1227,30331,1529,61,274,2766,24927,29415,1524,686,6123,6038,4576],"class_list":["post-448443","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-above","tag-barely","tag-because","tag-becoming","tag-believes","tag-capacity","tag-considered","tag-coping","tag-could","tag-crisis","tag-days","tag-delivery","tag-dialysis","tag-disease","tag-exhausted","tag-financially","tag-for","tag-forces","tag-giving","tag-haemodialysis","tag-hospital","tag-kidney","tag-left","tag-lifesustaining","tag-megan","tag-months","tag-mother","tag-nationally","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-operating","tag-patient","tag-penman","tag-point","tag-renal","tag-report","tag-reports","tag-says","tag-several","tag-shuttle","tag-taking","tag-tauranga","tag-terminal","tag-three","tag-to","tag-travel","tag-treatment","tag-unable","tag-units","tag-waikato","tag-week","tag-while","tag-wilson","tag-work"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/448443","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=448443"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/448443\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/448444"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=448443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=448443"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=448443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}