Dialysis is big drain on patients | Fraser Coast News | Local News in Fraser Coast

Campaign trail. Dialysis patients Lorraine Reid (left) and Denis Melksham consider the latest ministerial paperwork with Dialysis at Maryborough chair Anne Maddern yesterday.

THE SAPPING trek to Gympie starts at 6.30am this morning for Lorraine Reid when she is picked up at her Tinana home.

All going well, the 64-year-old will get home about 3.30pm after sitting through five hours of dialysis treatment.

What she does with the rest of her day will depend on her energy levels.

“I just get so tired,” she says. “All I want to do is sleep all the time. I can’t take much more.

“The travelling on top of it all makes it worse.”

Ms Reid started her dialysis treatment in May 2009 at Hervey Bay, but was one of six patients selected to have their treatment changed to Gympie.

“I was very upset, very angry. I felt like nobody cared about us down in Hervey Bay.

“We were told we were going in no uncertain terms.

“I just felt I went backwards to what I was before I started dialysis.”

Denis Melksham from Maryborough feels a little luckier. His treatment started in Hervey Bay just before last Christmas and has remained there.

“It does make you tired, plus laying there for five hours bored with nothing to do. It gets a bit depressing at times,” the 67-year-old said.

“Maryborough hospital just seems to sit there and not get used for anything anymore.”

Anne Maddern, chair of the Dialysis at Maryborough group, yesterday urged the government to act on their campaign which has included a petition with 8300 signatures.

“We could be within a hair’s breadth of success, we could be within 10 miles. I don’t know,” she said.

“There is a huge amount of depression attached to dialysis treatment in general.

“I would hate to see it get to a stage where a patient decides ‘I’m too tired, I’ll die instead’.

“But sometimes if you can’t see the end in sight you just give up.”

Ms Maddern believes about $230,000 would see enough renal machines installed at Maryborough hospital and argues that this cost would be offset by the fall-off in patient travel expenses.

“I was advised late last week that there are now another five people having to travel from Hervey Bay to Brisbane for dialysis, three times a week.

“This is in addition to the six who travel to Gympie and also those who travel from Maryborough to Hervey Bay.”