PATIENTS WITH kidney failure are to be given dialysis treatment in overflow accommodation specially constructed at Ninewells Hospital, Dundee writes Marjory Inglis, health reporter.

The modular building, already dubbed “the shed” by insiders, will open for business tomorrow and will cater for 24 patients every week.

It was built in sections at a factory for quick assembly on site and management have emphasised it will offer exactly the same quality of care as the main unit.

The Ninewells renal unit has come under increasing pressure from more patients who require treatment and from delays that have hit a planned new unit for Perth.

Every patient in Tayside and some from Fife who depend on a dialysis machine to cleanse toxins from their blood has to attend Ninewells Hospital where machines take over from failed kidneys. The unit has to run its machines until well into the evening to cope with the number of patients, meaning that some patients don’t make it home until after midnight.

Patients from Perth and Perthshire have spent years campaigning for a satellite unit to be established at Perth Royal Infirmary, not only to help take the pressure off Ninewells but to cut the travelling distance and late-hour sessions for very frail people.

But earlier this year patients were dealt a cruel blow when they discovered the long-awaited satellite unit due to open around now would be delayed after asbestos was found in the building being converted for use at PRI as a dialysis unit.

Meanwhile the inexorable rise in demand for dialysis continues with around 160 individuals depending on the machines at Ninewells.

NHS Tayside bought what is described as a “modular dialysis unit” which has been erected adjacent to the existing unit. It has been placed on the same spot previously occupied by a mobile operating theatre brought in last year to help cut waiting times for orthopaedic and other types of surgery. That theatre was dubbed “a sophisticated caravan.”

The benefit of the modular building is that when the PRI unit does open and patients being treated at Ninewells transfer there, the modular building can be fairly easily dismantled. Angus patients are keen to see a satellite dialysis unit established in the county.

Head of the renal unit Dr Iain Henderson outlined the increasing demands on the unit.

“Fifteen years ago we had something like 90 patients on dialysis, now we have around 160,” he said. This modular building will buy us the time we need until Perth opens.

“Sadly, because we are so behind schedule at Perth, we will have to keep going with our evening sessions.”