How can patients with kidney failure who can't afford expensive dialysis treatments get life-saving financial help? Well that is what the Government is working on. The Ministry of Health is developing a plan that will subsidize the cost for the most needy patients. Today we spoke to Health Minister Pablo Marin about this plan. He gave us a broad sketch.
Hon. Pablo Marin, Minister of Health
"We have a lot of patients out there that are in need of dialysis, they can't afford the dialysis, they are only taking one dialysis for week and they need three and it is very critical for them and what we have we have about 30 patients right now in our Ministry working with Loma Luz and KHMH and we pay everything but at the moment there is another person who wants to work with us that will cost us $220 per dialysis. At the moment KHMH is charging me $600 for dialysis, Loma Luz is charging me about $300 per dialysis. I think that definitely that is an outrage for me. I am sitting down with them tomorrow, with Loma Luz and with KHMH and I hope that this month I can finalize it and I can be able to put in more patients in the system."
Courtney Weatherburne, reporter
"With that, what is the specific plan, like is there a specific financial plan to subsidize the cost?"
Hon. Pablo Marin, Minister of Health
"We have $2 million dollars already on subsidizing and with that we are only working with 30 patients. With this $220 dollars they are charging now, we can put twice the amount so now 60 patients will be going in the dialysis. But what I am trying to see is look at the social aspect of that patient if they can afford one or two and we put the rest and the person who can't afford it we can help them with everything."
The government is still negotiating with this new un-named partner and we will keep following this story.
