Every day, thousands of Californians with kidney failure receive dialysis treatment to keep them alive.
Dialysis is a process that removes a patient’s blood, cleans it and puts it back into his or her body. It is a life-saving procedure that must be done three days a week for three or four hours at a time.
It also can leave patients feeling vulnerable and exposed. Dialysis patients place a huge amount of trust in their dialysis clinics to provide them with the safe care they need. Unfortunately, patients across California report alarming conditions of unsafe staffing levels and unsanitary conditions.
Testimonials from patients depict conditions that should concern us all. Dialysis patients have reported experiencing staffing levels so low that one technician was supposed to oversee treatment for 12 patients simultaneously, a situation that endangers patients.
Tangi Foster, a dialysis patient, has witnessed revolting conditions in her clinic. “I’ve seen bugs crawling in between the plastic that covers the light fixtures in the ceiling,” she said. “I’ve had to call the health department many times to report roaches, blood stains, and lack of adequate cleaning.”
These unsanitary conditions increase the risk of infections, hospitalizations, and death.
One source of the problem is that the industry is dominated by two big corporations—Fresenius and DaVita.
They operate more than 70 percent of the clinics in California and bring in $4 billion a year in profits. This industry dominance leaves patients with little choice but to suffer through these conditions to receive life-saving treatment.
To make matters worse, big dialysis corporations are charging some patients $150,000 a year for treatment, a 300 percent markup from the cost of providing the care.
The cost is not just a burden for these patients. Insurance companies must pass along the expense, driving up costs for all of us. One major California health insurance company reports that it takes 3,800 enrollees to offset the cost of just one dialysis patient.
Proposition 8, which will appear on the Nov. 6 ballot, will protect dialysis patients, reduce these corporations’ obscene profits, and push them to invest in improving care.
Under Proposition 8, profits will be limited to 15 percent above the amount spent on treating patients, leading to increased investment in care. By connecting the cost of patient care to profits, the proposition will push these big corporations to invest in hiring additional staff, improving overall clinic hygiene, reducing insect infestations and buying new equipment.
All these much-needed changes will improve the quality of care for patients. Dialysis is a multibillion-dollar industry that profits from the misfortune of patients with a life-threatening condition, and these corporations are reaping those massive profits at the expense of patient care.
Proposition 8 will ensure that the priority in California swings away from the current profit-driven system to one in which patients get the quality care they need.
Megallan Handford is a registered nurse who has worked for the past 17 years in dialysis clinics in Southern California owned by Fresenius Medical Care and DaVita Kidney Care. He wrote this commentary for CALmatters.
