A patient at the new unit
On Thursday 24 September 2009 the Stoke Mandeville Satellite Unit of the Oxford Kidney Unit will be officially opened by Mr John Champion, Chairman of the Six Counties Kidney Patients Association. The ceremony will be attended by senior figures from both Buckinghamshire Hospitals and Oxford Radcliffe Hospitals. David Lidington MP for Aylesbury and patients who use the service will also be present.
Welcoming the opening of the unit, Renal Unit Manager Fiona Barber said: "We are so pleased to be able to deliver a service for patients from the Aylesbury area nearer to their homes. Up until May this year patients from this area had to travel to Oxford for treatment. Treatment is tiring for patients as well as time-consuming. It is clearly better that they can be as near to home as possible. In my experience dialysis patients are an uncomplaining, happy bunch of people who accept their circumstances with good humour in spite of their difficulties. It is great that we are able to make their lives a bit easier."
The Oxford Kidney Unit has been providing renal replacement therapy and transplantation to patients with kidney failure for over 40 years and is a regional centre of excellence covering six counties - Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Wiltshire, Berkshire, Northamptonshire and Gloucestershire. At the present time over 350 patients across this area are receiving haemodialysis therapy either in Oxford or at home or at one of the four Satellite Units in Swindon, High Wycombe, Milton Keynes and the latest Unit at Stoke Mandeville.
The Stoke Mandeville Unit has been open since May and patients have reported an improvement in their overall well being and quality of life now that they are so close to their unit. In some cases the distance from home to the unit has been cut by 30 miles. Before the move some patients were finding that including travel time their treatment took up to eight hours. Cutting the travel time gives patients more time with their families at home and helps them lead a comparatively normal life.
The Stoke Mandeville Renal Unit has 24 patients from Aylesbury and the surrounding area who require treatment three times a week. The Unit is open Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.
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