With dialysis and kidney transplantation hardly affordable to the middle and lower income classes, a House bill making these affordable and prescribing set of laws governing such services, has passed the health committee of the House of Representatives.
Rep. Rodolfo Ordanes of the Senior Citizen Partylist said the House has apporved at the commitee level the proposed Comprehensive Renal Replacement Therapy Act which provides policies on kidney transplantation, peritoneal dialysis, and hemodialysis, including making these therapies affordable to all seniors and indigents and expands the PhilHealth transplant benefit package.
Ordanes moved to include the provision that covers free dialysis for all senior citizens as he thanked the health committee chair Rep. Ciriaco Gato, Jr (Batanes) for shepherding the approval of the said measure at the committee level.
“In the bill, the PhilHealth transplant package covers both patient and prospective organ donor, so they do not have to worry about the cost of tests and the transplant,” Rep. Ordanes pointed out.
“The bill also increases the PhilHealth package rate by covering three peritoneal dialysis exchanges for 365 days and increases hemodialysis treatment coverage to four sessions per week,” Ordanes added.
Ordanes said these policies and cost benefits are also meant to
“encourage more people to donate their kidneys through legitimate kidney donation processes, protecting the health of donors.”
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The congressman said the bill also sets a five-year target and mandate so that within that time all national, regional, and provincial shall have their dialysis service facilities and wards, as well as have the needed trained personnel.
There is required registration of all dialysis patients in the PhilHealth dialysis database prior to availment of peritoneal dialysis and hemodialysis
The National Kidney and Transplant Institute is also given an added function of accreditation of dialysis training centers.
Tags: #RepOrdanes, #SeniorCitizenPartylist, #kidneytransplantanddialysis