QEH denies claims of increase in deaths of dialysis patients

The Queen Elizabeth Hospital has refuted “baseless” claims that there has been an increase in deaths of dialysis patients in recent days.

In a statement issued on Tuesday, the medical facility dismissed information making the rounds on social media that a higher-than-usual number of deaths had been recorded due to a large number of non-working dialysis machines.

“On behalf of the doctors, nurses, support staff and patients of the Acute Kidney Unit (AKU), the Queen Elizabeth Hospital definitively refutes this baseless allegation,” it said.

The hospital outlined that on any given day, 22 dialysis machines were in operation, with two backup machines ready for use in the case of any failure – a situation which it said has not happened in recent times.

“For context, the AKU, also known as the Dialysis Unit, welcomes 66 patients with end-stage renal disease requiring life-saving hemodialysis per day, six days per week, and has a complement of 24 working dialysis machines. Twenty-two of these are in use daily, and two backup machines remain working and ready for immediate use should the need arise. It has been confirmed that there has been no need for the backup machines to be cycled into use in recent times as there have been zero machine failures,” it added.

The QEH gave the assurance that the unit follows and adheres to all international maintenance standards, infection prevention and control guidelines, as well as quality standards on water testing, high-level disinfection and more.

“This is corroborated by the fact that for the month of June, there is no evidence to date from laboratory tests to show contamination within the department,” the QEH added.

Management of the Martindales Road, St Michael institution also confirmed that for 2023, all scheduled daily, weekly, monthly and annual regular to high-level deep cleaning had been executed in full and on time.

“Operations on the unit continue as outlined above, maintaining all standards of care, maintenance and infection prevention and control,” the statement ended.

(PR/JB)