It’s a life-saving treatment, but in one Northern Alberta town, it’s only available to five patients. Others in Lac La Biche are forced to travel hours for dialysis in other cities because the local mobile unit doesn’t have enough staff trained to assist them.
Patients are now speaking out, hoping the province will establish a permanent unit within their town, sooner than later.
The retrofitted bus offers patients in Lac La Biche dialysis. It’s just 15 minutes from Jerome Anderson’s home, but he drives hours to get his treatment. In fact, he travels to St Paul three times a week to receive dialysis because there isn’t enough space on the bus.
“I’ve been driving back and forth to St. Paul since November 12th last year.”
“The first 6 months were just horrible,” he says, “getting sick, just rejecting everything. Sometimes the trips would take me 2-3 hours to get home because I had to pull over on a road and get sick.”
Three hours of travel three times a week, and he’s not alone. Former Lac La Biche mayor Duane Young makes a six hour return trip three times a week to get dialysis treatment in Edmonton.
“My times are at six o’clock at night so I have to get there at 6 – I’m there until 10:30 and I have to drive back in the middle of the night,” says Young. “You’re tired all the time, mainly because of the travel, and it’s just very, very frustrating.”
Even those who receive dialysis treatments on the bus say it’s not always reliable.
“They had a freezing problem,” explains 73-year-old Jim Ludwig. “Twice when it was 44 below we had to drive to St Paul for dialysis or else wait for the next day or two days.”
“They can shut down anytime – fluctuation in power – anything like that affects it. They’re very delicate,” he adds.
Patients, and their families, say the solution is clear.
“The solution is we need a dialysis room here,” says Young. “We have room in the hospital, and just get it done. Quit playing politics with our community all the time.”
Plus, it’s one they’ve heard before.
“We were made a promise of a permanent unit at a hospital,” says Alex Ludwig, Jim’s granddaughter. “We did not get our permanent unit, we got a bus that was supposed to be renovated but it’s not. It’s the exact same bus except it has one more seat.”
“The bus,” explains Dr. Kevin Worry, with Alberta Health Services, “is part of our first phase. As we look at things, if we find that there’s an additional need that’s not currently being met, then other options are going to be explored, for sure.”
“There were promises made and they didn’t follow through with their promises,” states Ludwig, “and if you don’t have your word – you got nothing.”
Wildrose MLA Shayne Saskiw wants to get the dialysis unit moved into the local hospital.
“The solution is simple. Take the dialysis units out of the bus put it in the hospital, train local nurses and have the dialysis administered locally. People in Lac La Biche shouldn’t have to leave their community to get reasonable health care.”
It’s an issue he’s brought up with the Health Minister.
“I’ve sent correspondence to the health minister, minister Danyluk previously, before I defeated him, had promised that the dialysis units would be put in the hospital. It’s been a complete failure,” says Saskiw.
He calls it another indication that AHS is flawed.
“Centralization of health care doesn’t work because they don’t know what’s going on in our local community.”
Alberta Health Services say the bus is meant to stay in the community. AHS says the bus was recently renovated to treat one additional patient inside, and it will stay put year-round.
“Right now there’s 5 units,” says Worry, “but as you add staff, you can actually do a couple runs in a day, even up to four, so potentially this bus could treat up to 40 people.”
“With local staff you can afford to do more than one run in a day,” he adds. “We have the potential to do up to 40.”
Right now, staffing remains an issue. Currently, two Edmonton health care workers travel to Lac La Biche to deliver dialysis. AHS aims to hire and train staff in the community, and says the process is ongoing.
“With this retrofitting, and with the additional staff being locally hired in Lac La Biche, we’d be able to look after not only the current Lac La Biche dialysis patients, but all the patients on the wait list,” says Worry.
Still, for many people waiting for treatment, the process is not moving fast enough.
“In 10 years, if we have 25 people, we’re not going to be able to do this with five machines on a bus,” says Alex Ludwig.
“There are other people out there that have been forced to move away just so they can continue their life,” says Anderson. “They’re not around their friends or family or any kind of support. They’re all by themselves.”
He’s been told he can’t get treatment on the dialysis bus because there are not enough people trained to administer the dialysis.
“I’m on a wait list,” he says. “You wait for someone to die so you can get a spot.”
It’s a situation that many Lac La Biche residents say is simply unacceptable.
“This isn’t like a mammogram,” stresses Saskiw. “If you don’t get dialysis – you die.”
“It’s just not right, living in a province like this,” says Young.
“It almost seems like the medical situation is that rural people are second class,” he adds. “There’s not an excuse in the world why that dialysis system hasn’t been put in the hospital.”
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