Today, 10th March 2022, is World Kidney Day. Founded in 2006, World Kidney Day (WKD) is a global campaign aimed at raising awareness of the importance of our kidneys. This year’s theme is “Kidney Health for All – Bridge the gap to better kidney care”.
With healthcare so close to our hearts, we wanted to support this year’s campaign by helping to raise awareness of good kidney health.
Chronic kidney disease (CKD) affects 10% of adults worldwide, but it is estimated that 9 out of 10 of those people are unaware of their condition. If not treated, CKD can be deadly; in fact, kidney disease is projected to be the 5th leading cause of death by 2040.
As with all serious diseases, early detection is key, enabling treatment to commence quickly and be more effective. But lack of knowledge of chronic kidney disease is causing mortality rates to increase year on year, and so World Kidney Day 2022 aims to help bridge the knowledge gaps to better kidney care.
Illustrating the effects of chronic kidney disease, Medical Hire have been privileged to have been involved in a number of television storylines over the years.
At the beginning of 2018, ITV’s Coronation Street covered a kidney transplant storyline…
After a year and half away from the Street, character Carla Connor returned to the cobbles, but she was hiding a big secret – that she was suffering from kidney failure. As her condition worsened, she was forced to reveal to her family that she needed a kidney transplant.
The search for a donor began and her half-brother and sister came forward for testing. Her half-brother, Aiden, was found to be the perfect match and so the transplant went ahead. Viewers first saw Aiden taken to theatre to have his healthy kidney removed, followed quickly by Carla to receive the kidney which would save her life.
Continuing a successful long-term working relationship with the popular British soap, Medical Hire were invited to provide medical props and equipment for the filming of these scenes. The team provided hospital beds, bed accessories, drips and syringe drivers, monitors, and a range of consumables. Props were needed for filming scenes with both characters in parallel, so the finished programme looked completely realistic.
Another kidney storyline that Medical Hire were involved in was back in 2016 on Chester-based soap Hollyoaks…
A train crash left character Nico with severe injuries. However, whilst in hospital, it was revealed that she only had one kidney and the kidney was starting to fail due to the impact of the train crash and her injuries.
Whilst waiting for a kidney donor to be identified for a transplant, Nico underwent regular dialysis treatment. Enabling the treatment to be portrayed authentically, Medical Hire were approached to provide a dialysis machine.
A donor was eventually found and the transplant successfully went ahead. But the storyline came back to the fore over a year later when it was revealed that Nico hadn’t been taking her anti-rejection medication correctly and her new kidney was failing. The race started to find another donor, but in the meantime, Nico was forced to re-start her dialysis treatment. Medical Hire were approached once again to provide a dialysis machine, with the team delivering and setting up the machine as required to fit with the film schedule.
Both of these storylines illustrate the devastating impact that chronic kidney disease can have on lives. Here are 8 things you can do to help take care of your kidneys:
- Keep fit, Be active
- Eat a healthy diet
- Check and control your blood sugar
- Check and control your blood pressure
- Take appropriate fluid intake
- Don’t smoke
- Don’t take over-the-counter anti-inflammatory/pain-killer pills regularly
- Get your kidney function checked if you have one or more of the ‘high risk’ factors – diabetes, hypertension, you are obese, you have a family history of kidney disease
Join us in raising awareness of World Kidney Day and the importance of good kidney health on social media – use the tags #WorldKidneyDay and #kidneyhealthforall
Find out more about World Kidney Day by visiting https://www.worldkidneyday.org/