First kidney dialysis center in Ibb [Archives:2006/924/Local News]
Nashwan Dammaj
Ibb correspondent
IBB, Feb. 25 ) The Kidney Failure Patients Society held a Feb. 23 ceremony at Ibb Cultural Center to inaugurate the opening of a kidney dialysis center at Al-Thawra Hospital, Ibb.
Deputy Minister of Health Dr. Abas Al-Motawakil attended the event, as well as local council General Secretary Colonel Amin Al-Warafi; Deputy Governor Colonel Abdul Wahid Salah, Ibb University rector Dr. Ahmed Shoja'a Aldeen and other governorate political and social personalities.
Dr. Amin Abdul Wahid Al-Rubie, health office director and head of Friends of the Kidney Failure Patients Society, welcomed ceremony attendees. He explained kidney failure, highlighting the suffering of kidney patients at large, who cannot afford treatment costs, and in Ibb in particular. Ibb is famous for having the largest number of kidney failure patients. He said the society has a commitment to pay the company providing serum and equipment YR 12 million but unfortunately, it has failed to pay that sum until now.
Former MP Sheikh Mocbel Al-Kadahi spoke of the necessity of all parties combining joint effort to guarantee continuation of such humanitarian projects. He asked attendees to give to the society and urged scholars, mosque preachers and newspapers owners to exert efforts for the sake of such societies.
Attendees watched a visual program prepared by society General Secretary Bashir Abu Isba'. The program provided information about kidney failure, its causes and its rate in the community, as well as the society's activities. It also gave a briefing on patients treated at the Ibb hospital center. Donations from the meeting reached YR five million.
Educational office head Ahmed Rizq Al-Sormi said Islam guarantees individual rights; among them, the right to life. Consequently, this right should be available to kidney failure and other patients as well; yet, it cannot be achieved without cooperation from all parties.
Al-Motawakil said that dealing with kidney failure was very difficult in the past because patients had to travel abroad for treatment. Things now have changed, according to him, since establishing a kidney transplant center at Al-Thawra General Hospital in Sana'a.
There are six kidney dialysis centers among the governorates and Ibb's center is one of them. Al-Motawakil hoped center duties would not be limited only to kidney dialysis, but that it also would send patients to the Sana'a kidney transplant center, pointing out that donors should be from among patients' relatives.
Al-Warafi praised the efforts that helped establish the center and he hoped that other centers will open in other districts. He suggested a special support fund for kidney patients' friends in every school, mosque and government institution, as the centers mainly depend on public support. He said the centers do all they can and there should be public cooperation, adding that this is the least the community could provide to such societies.
During the ceremony, greeting chants were presented by girls from Modern Yemeni School and the Modern Scout Band, in addition to a play performed by the governorate's National Cultural Office Theatre Band.
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