Kidney Matters

Places to go and stay on Dialysis

We will be posting details about holidays and places that cater for dialysis patients in the near future.

If you have found a holiday destination and you would like to send the details we will put it on the web page for others to try.

Patients’ Holiday

This year we are going to Crete in October. At the moment we have 12 patients and their partners going, 1 family and 1single patient. The patients look forward to these holidays as this allows them to try and have some form of normality by being able to go abroad. The number of patients that go dictates how many staff need to accompany them. This year 2 nurses are needed.

Our role out there is to help the patients settle in and take them to and from the dialysis unit for their treatment. We also hold a clinic everyday in our room so that we can deal with any problems that they may be experiencing. We arrange day trips whilst we are there so that they can befriend each other as it is not only QE patients but patients are from all satellite units ie Aston, Tipton Kings Norton and so on, plus transplant patients.

The nurses only stay for the first week and then the patients stay on for the second week but we put everything in place before we leave so that they do not have to worry themselves. Not only is this a break for the renal patients but we find that this also helps their relatives to have a break as we are there 24/7 for the first week. This gives the relatives time for themselves or even a chance to get things off their mind by talking to the nurses.

The K.P.A. would like to thank Sharon Pilling for organizing the holiday, and sending us this article, and the other members of staff who are supporting her.

	KIDNEY MATTERS
Queen Elizabeth Hospital Kidney Patients' Association