Nigerians spend about $500million annually for kidney transplant in India alone, the Julie Donli Kidney Foundation, has revealed.
The founder of Julie Donli Kidney Foundation, Julie Donli, made the revelation while addressing the press during the kidney disease awareness walk to mark this year’s World Kidney Day.
The World Kidney Day is annually marked on every 2nd Thursday of March, and it is held in about 90 countries with events numbering up to 600.
According to Julie Donli, this year’s event is targeted at creating more awareness about children with kidney problems with the theme: “Act early to prevent it”.
“Today, we took our awareness walk from the Federal Secretariat to the National Assembly where we met with Hon. Lanre Tejuoso, the House Committee Chairman on Health to appeal for more government support to kidney disease patients who are often unable to afford the very expensive weekly dialysis, and on the need to equip Nigerian hospitals to the standard where transplants can be done here, instead of spending millions abroad,” she said.
On its part, the foundation has been able to assist at least 70 patients to bear the cost of their dialysis.
