NKTI shuts water supply to rooms so as not to jeopardize dialysis ops

INQUIRER file photo

MANILA, Philippines — The administration of the National Kidney and Transplant Institute (NKTI) has been forced to shut the water supply going to the hospital rooms to ensure that there would be enough water going through the dialysis machines of the institution.

NKTI Executive Director Dr. Rosemarie Liquete earlier explained that the institute needs a minimum of 1,500 cubic meters of water for its normal operation.  This would support rooms for 283 patients and 70 hemodialysis machines which operate for four hours and requires 100 liters of clean water per each cycle.

READ: Metro water supply shortage until August feared

NKTI Department Manager III Dr. Michael Jaro said on Thursday that the hospital’s reserve water levels in the cisterns are reaching the critical level.

“We shut down already water supplies on the all rooms […] I just received note that at 11 a.m. cisterns are down to the critical point of 20 percent,” Jaro said in an ambush interview shortly after Health Secretary Francisco Duque met with representatives of hospitals affected by the water shortage.

“If we continue to use so, with patients scheduled (for dialysis) the whole day, we won’t have enough water to run the dialysis facility for the next shift this afternoon,” he added.

According to Jaro, they are still hopeful that the trucks from the Manila Water — which serves the area of East Avenue in Quezon City which is loaded with hospitals — arrive by 1 p.m., for them to continue with their dialysis operations.

“Well hopefully yes, because we are also sourcing our own pumps, but unfortunately pumps are quite limited,” he said in response to questions whether the remaining 20 percent will be able to hold out for the current dialysis shift.

“Hopefully they are able to do that by 1 p.m., and we have patients already on the dialysis […] that should be good until 2 p.m.,” he added.

Aside from shutting water supplies, NKTI is also turning down their air-conditioning systems which require water for cooling.

“As of midnight, we were hundred percent full on all systems.  By 7 a.m., we were hitting already 60 percent.  By just 8 a.m., we went down to less than 50 percent,” Jaro said.

For the meantime, NKTI will prioritize patients who critically need dialysis before those who are seeking dialysis on an “elective” basis.

“We really need to prioritize the critical patients, you see you can go to the dialysis as a matter of regular schedule without you being in a critical point, so there are what we call priority,” Jaro noted.

“Critical patients are those who cannot breathe, will need immediate dialysis.  If you can delay for an hour or two it won’t hurt you, even four hours, for some patients even ten hours,” he added. /jpv