Hyderabad, Sep 18 (UNI) Telangana Governor Dr Tamilisai Soundararajan on Wednesday said that the country needs at least 20,000 Nephrologists to meet the growing need for renal replacement therapy or dialysis.
Addressing at the 37th Congress of the International Society of Blood Purification here, Soundararajan said India has only 1500 qualified nephrologists for a country of 1.35 billion people and the prevalence of end stage renal disease in the country is estimated to be between 151 and 232 per million populations. The health care systems cannot meet the growing need for renal replacement therapy/dialysis.
Since the local manufacturing has been introduced in India, the price of Peritoneal Dialysis (PD) has significantly declined and is now cheaper than Haemodialysis (HD), she said and appealed the expert doctors attending the Congress, apart from treating kidney disease, the experts will deliberate on how to address these issues and make treatment more affordable.