Salford Royal Hospital hosted a range of stalls in honour of World Kidney Day last Thursday.
The stalls were set up to help raise awareness of kidney disease in the UK.
This years theme was kidney disease in women, as women are actually more prone to the disease than men. Other factors such as being pregnant with kidney disease cause further problems, especially when on dialysis.
This coincided with International Women’s Day last Thursday and helped to promote awareness of the disease further.
Brian Egerton, who was born with kidney disease himself, helped to offer his advice, guidance and knowledge to the patients and general public at the stall.
He said, “A lot of people get the disease, don’t realise and it will just hit them and they’ll be on dialysis within a few days!”
“The biggest causes of kidney failure is high blood pressure and uncontrolled diabetes.
“If you get diagnosed early on, you’ll be taught how to control things like diet”
Brian, having had 4 kidney transplants since 1988, knows first hand the importance of awareness of the disease. Brian received his most recent kidney transplant in December 2017, which was donated by his brother.
#WorldKidneyDay was on March 8, 2018.
Don’t wait until the next #WorldKidneyDay!
EVERYDAY is a good day to take care of your kidneys!
Learn how: https://t.co/huFQUtYb1D #MondayMotivation pic.twitter.com/K1GBrGhtGm— World Kidney Day (@worldkidneyday) March 12, 2018
Organ donation is extremely important and there is plenty of information about donation on the stall in Salford Royal Hospital in the Hope building entrance, which is set up every month.
Everyone can donate their healthy organs and tissue on an opt-in scheme through either Brain Stem Death (where the person is essentially brain dead and needs a ventilator to keep their heart beating), Circulatory Death ( which is the loss of function of the heart and lungs after a cardiac arrest when the patient cannot be resuscitated) and Living Donation (where the person is still alive and can choose to donate a kidney, a small section of liver, discarded bone from a hip or knee replacement and also amniotic membrane).
In order to become a donor you must either:
- Join the NHS Organ Donor Register
- Let your family and friends know what you wish to donate
For more information on organ donation click here.
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