Navajeevanam-Free Dialysis Project

There are thousands of renal patients who suffer due to their inability to do dialysis on a regular basis. The fact that most patients need to do dialysis once or twice a week for the rest of their lives, makes this one of the worst medical conditions. The poor become poorer, as every week they need to find the money for dialysis and if they miss even one dialysis, their life is at risk. Finding or maintaining a regular job is also difficult for them as dialysis lasts several hours and they will have to take a day off every few days for this. Thus, poor kidney patients requiring dialysis treatment suffers a lot, and it could be someone as young as a 17-year-old college student who just began to chase his dreams, or a 50-year-old man, who is the sole bread-winner of a family.

We started India's first Free Dialysis centre in 2005, which was inaugurated by Dr A.P.J.Abdul Kalam, the then president of India. Since then, we have completed providing 4.5 lakhs of free dialysis to the poor kidney patients in Kerala. Currently, there are 10 such centres that are being run in different parts of the State, providing free dialysis, without charging even a single rupee from them, of which 5 are run in Government hospitals. From Trivandrum to Kasargod, these centres are a boon to the poor renal patients who are struggling to meet their treatment expenses.

The free dialysis centres are being run to cater to the most deserving patients in society. In the last 15 years, over 4.5 lakhs of free dialyses have been provided, and thousands of patients have benefitted from this. It is not just the individuals, but the entire family is impacted in a positive way, as we see people who have family members that starve themselves every few days or stop going to school or college so that they can save money for their children's or parents' Dialysis. Thereby each dialysis is valuable, and we wish to continue providing dialysis, reaching out to the poorest of the poor people.