There’s an interesting articlce at wlky.com about patients in Louisville, Kentucky complaining that they are being picked up late and forced to endure long post-dialysis waits for transportation to take them home again.

The article quotes both patients and carers, with the most ire being directed at the late pickups, which are forcing patients to cut short their treatment time.

Anyone on dialysis will understand that acheiving the best possible outcome for those with ESRD depends on strict adherence to the dialysis regime outlined by the treating physician. To have a dialysis treatment cut short by factors outside the control of the patient is completely unacceptable.

But where does the blame actually lie?

It’s rather simplistic to lay the blame at the feet of TARC 3, the city transportation system for the elderly and disabled in Lousville, but is there more to it than that?

One of the complainants, Sandra White, daugher of elderly dialysis patient Link Moore (who has unfortunately since passed away, apparently due to having nine out of eleven dialysis tratments cut short due to arriving late for his tratment), told WLKY.com that:

From the article:

But on May 18, they arrived at 2:56 p.m., loaded him up at 3:08 p.m. and wheeled him into the downtown dialysis facility at 3:33 p.m. After 30 minutes of pre-dialysis treatment, Moore lost 30 minutes of his scheduled 3.5 hour treatment because the center closed at 7 p.m.

I’m sorry, what was that?

Moore lost 30 minutes of his scheduled 3.5 hour treatment because the center closed at 7 p.m.

It seems to me that there are at least two parties at who’s feet the blame needs to be laid here. Why is a dialysis unit closing at 7pm, cutting its patient’s treatment time short, and thus placing their lives at risk?

Are we so bottom-line driven in this day that we’re prepared to put a patient’s life at risk so we can close the dialysis unit on time.

Nice try wlky.com, but a little further thought and investigation would have shown that there are at least two parties responsible for this tragedy. You should have done better.