National Kidney Awareness Month '09

On June 28, 2009, M3 Dialysis Center of Bacolod City conducted an outreach program in the City of Escalante in connection of National Kidney Awareness Month. There are about 80 Escalantehanon who benefited from free urine screenings and consultations of Nephrologist from M3. A short lecture on the relation of Diabetes and Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD) was done by Dr. Vic De Guzman while Dr. Pompeyo Bautista shared his expertise on the prevention of CKD thru proper diet and healthy lifestyle.

CKD is one of the non-communicable diseases that the Department of Health (DOH) is closely monitoring. The fact remains that despite the massive advocacy on the prevention of CKD by DOH, the incidence continues to rise in terms of morbidity and mortality. One of the reasons identified is the high cost of the medical services here in our country despite the effort of Department of Tourism (DOT) promoting Philippines as one of the medical tourism destination in the world. Kidney transplant in Bacolod would cost more than a million while hemodialysis would cost more than three thousand pesos per session. Ideally, a CKD patient would require at least two hemodialysis per week thus one CKD patient should have at least a budget of twenty-four thousand pesos per month excluding maintenance medications.

As part of its advocacy in fighting CKD, M3 Dialysis Center would like to change this practice by offering affordable hemodialysis treatment and quality service to all CKD patients of Bacolod City and the whole province of Negros Occidental.

Our dream that this worthy endeavor of M3 would inspire back other dialysis center to continue giving hope to the hopeless CKD patients by improving their quality of life thru affordable hemodialysis. Remember that we are not in this world to see how much money we can have but to see how much difference we can make in the lives of our patients.

We would like to extend our heartful thanks to Jay Castronuevo, the Country Manager of M3, Dr. Vic De Guzman, Medical Director of M3 Bacolod, Dr. Pompeyo Bautista, Medical Director of M3 Manila, Dr. Reynold Iledan, Dr. Victoria Gendrala and to all the staff of M3 Dialysis Center of Bacolod City.

I also want to thank my "Ka Berks" from the City Health Office of Escalante who one way or another made this activity a success despite the controversy. Ka Berks Forever (KBF) !