Renal Unit

Head: -currently unspecified-

The Renal Dialysis Unit at Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital is the largest single unit of it's kind in Africa.

The unit provides an acute haemodialysis service for any patient requiring it at the hospital. However, patients are accepted onto the chronic dialysis programme only if they fit stringent criteria, the most important being that they must be transplantable. The strict criteria are needed because of the limited resources of the country.

The unit comprises of an acute haemodialysis, chronic haemodialysis, peritoneal dialysis, inpatient and out-patient sections.

Acute Haemodialysis:

• The unit offers an acute intermittent haemodialysis service.
• It also manages patients with acute renal failure who require continuous haemodialysis in ICU.
• There are 6 haemodialysis machines available in the ward and the ICU has 2 CVVHD machines.
• The ward is capable of dialysing 18 patients with acute renal failure.

Chronic Haemodialysis:

• The unit comprises of 18 machines which allows for dialysis of 44 patients daily.
• The unit is also responsible for the satellite unit at Leratong Hospital, near Krugersdorp, which has facilities for a further 27 patients.

Peritoneal Dialysis (PD):

• The unit is responsible for an acute peritoneal dialysis service in the medical wards.
• It also provides a chronic PD service including two satellite sites in the Soweto clinics.
• There are 60 patients on the chronic PD programme.

Inpatient Services:

• The unit offers a full consultative service for the entire hospital, averaging 25 patients per day.

Out-patient Services:

• This service includes follow up of past inpatients, a full referral service to the Soweto clinics, secondary and out-lying rural hospitals and a hypertension clinic.
• It has an average of 32 patients attending, with approximately 1'100 patients seen per year.
• Transplanted patients are also seen regularly at these clinics.
• The chronic ambulatory PD patients have a separate out-patient service.