21 years of kidney dialysis

Star: KOTA KINABALU: Imagine sitting for four hours as a dialysis machine next to you cleans your blood. You do it three times a week throughout the year.
Pensioner Michael Mojitoh has been doing it for 21 years.
The 63-year-old former Health Department technician is among the oldest kidney patients relying on the machine since his kidney failed in 1984.
“I have gotten used to it,” said Michael who was one of 36 patients seeking treatment at the MAA-Medicare Charity Kidney Dialysis Centre in Tanjung Aru near here recently.
The ailment ended his dream of farming on his 2ha land at Kampung Nambazan in Penampang near here – something he wanted to do when he retired.
“Now I cannot plant padi. But I’m happy just walking among the fruit trees and looking at the fish pond near my house,” he said.
The opening of the MAA-Medicare centre has made it easier for kidney patients to seek treatment.
Prior to this, they had to queue up at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital here for their turn at the 12 dialysis machines there.
When Michael first suffered kidney failure after a bout of hypertension in 1983, there were no dialysis machines in Kota Kinabalu.
He and two other patients had to be treated at the General Hospital in Kuala Lumpur.
They also had to stay there.
It was then that doctors suggested that he go for a transplant but there was no available donor among his family members.
“Now there are more kidney donors and I cannot undergo a transplant as I have been infected with hepatitis C due to blood transfusions,” he said.
Due to his condition, Michael said he has to watch his diet and avoid food high in phosphate and salt.
“So I don’t take things like coffee and durian, all the stuff which I liked,” he said with a smile on his face.