Care-ing Wheels ensures dialysis patients never miss appointments

Patients with kidney-failure need constant dialysis to survive. Sadly, many patients miss their appointments either because they the commute.

“Old age is common symptoms to not feeling well on dialysis, though older patients are more likely to have other diseases, ranging from pain and physical disability to poor eyesight, poor energy and functioning.” says MAA Medicare Charitable Foundation (Medicare), a charity organization established to provide dialysis treatment to the poor and underprivileged kidney-failure patients.

“While some patients are willing to accept these physical limitations for live-saving measures, others wind up withdrawing from dialysis because the burden of symptoms is so difficult it makes the quality of life poor that they don’t want to continue.”

The non-profit wanted to solve this problem and created Care-ing Wheels, a program that offers non-emergency transport to patients who are unable to travel by car or public transport, with a strong focus on providing services for the elderly and patients with disability.

The program provides either Van transport with a dedicated staff to provide door-to-door service to patients, or a Transport Allowance for patients who are physically capable to commute with taxis. The Van transport system also allows nurses to make home visits and provide monthly groceries to patients and their families.

This program was added in 2014 as an expansion in its continued efforts to enhance Medicare’s Patient Welfare Fund (PWF) Program. In its first year, the Program provided an additional 20% (RM45,824) value of aid to the existing PWF subsidy-Program.

Aside from the direct effect to the dialysis patients, Medicare said the program also raised the level of service via a spill-over effect for the nurses and everyone involved: improving their character, communication, and forming good relationships with the patients and their families.

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