Seattle Kidney Center open house September 24, 2009

Nonprofit Northwest Kidney Centers, King County's predominant kidney dialysis provider, has opened the Seattle Kidney Center, a state-of-the-art treatment and training facility that will deliver 30,000 dialysis treatments each year.

The center will offer tours to the public at an open house that will also feature refreshments and a kidney-healthy cooking demonstration.

The facility includes:
-- 15 community dialysis stations for patients who can sit in a chair for four hours of treatment three times a week.
-- 15 special care stations with a more intensive level of services for patients in unstable and fragile condition who must dialyze in a bed.
-- Three isolation rooms so that patients with a communicable illness can get dialysis without going to a hospital.
-- Eight stations to provide training and monitoring for patients who give themselves dialysis treatments at home.

In keeping with its mission to promote independence for people who have kidney disease, Northwest Kidney Centers operates one of the country's largest home dialysis programs, with 200 patients giving themselves treatments at home. Seattle Kidney Center includes a peritoneal dialysis training center and the new Sam Rubinstein Home Hemodialysis Training Center, which was funded, in part, with a memorial gift from Gladys Rubinstein, whose husband Sam spent 10 years on home hemodialysis.
(Hemodialysis and peritoneal dialysis are two methods to cleanse the blood of toxins, remove excess fluid and maintain hormone balance in the body when the kidneys fail to do so. Without dialysis or a kidney transplant, a person with kidney failure can stay alive only a matter of days.)

"This building brings all of our regular and specialized patient services under one roof," said Northwest Kidney Centers President and Chief Executive Joyce F. Jackson, "and we are open from 5:30 a.m. until 1 a.m. six days a week to help patients fit dialysis in with the other priorities of their lives."

Free.

Official Website: http://nwkidney.org/aboutUs/skc_openhouse.html