Inside A Looming Health Crisis In Singapore: Kidney Failure - Free Websites, Share News And Posts Publicly

Good morning.

More than 200,000 people, young and old, in Singapore may be going about their lives not knowing they have chronic kidney disease (CKD).

Barely any symptoms are felt in the early stages, which sounds like… not a bad thing, right?

But consider this: All those kidneys will eventually fail, and by the time you feel poorly, it’s too late – dialysis or a transplant are the only options. That was what happened to journalist Christy Yip’s granddad, and before working on this story, she didn’t know any better either. “I just accepted that kidney failure was a sudden condition.”

These 200,000 undiagnosed cases are on top of some 300,000 known CKD patients on record. Which spells a looming healthcare crisis for Singapore.

Aside from the astronomical costs of treating kidney failure, the National Kidney Foundation warns that we could run out of dialysis spots.

And Christy reflects: “The worst thing is that you don’t die, but suddenly, you must plan your whole life around thrice-weekly dialysis. As a young person, it’s difficult to imagine that being my life.”

Conversely, producer Eileen Chew was surprised to learn how diagnosing the disease early “can make a big difference in one’s quality of life”. One profile, Fuad, has staved off dialysis for over 20 years by managing his condition properly.

Working on this story convinced Christy to ask for a kidney function test during basic health screening. “I also nagged at my family for weeks to get theirs done!” It’s something that doctors hope viewers will do, after watching this.

As Christy put it: “It would be really sad to see kidney failure be so common that we need as many dialysis centres as we do kindergartens or provision shops in every HDB estate.”

Yvonne Lim

Deputy Chief Editor, CNA Insider (Digital)