Learn more about kidney problems in June

Last Tuesday, Pres. Rodrigo Duterte apologized to the Maranao people for the destruction suffered by Marawi City and for declaring martial law in Mindanao in connection with the Marawi crisis. Pres. Duterte said,

"Hindi pa naman natapos ang Ramadan, I would like to say to the Maranao people that I am very, very, very sorry na nangyari ito sa atin. Sana sa madaling panahon you will find a new heart to forgive my soldiers, ang gobyerno, pati ako for declaring martial law." This is classic Duterte who openly apologizes to our people even if the Marawi crisis was no fault of his! There’s really no need for Pres. Duterte to apologize to the Maranaos, but then this is Pres. Duterte whose heart bleeds for his people.

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June has been declared the National Kidney Month since the presidency of then Pres. Fidel V. Ramos whom we all know lost a kidney during his training days in the United States Military Academy. To help celebrate Kidney month, I invited Dr. Vivina Chiu, pediatric nephrologist and past president of PSN and president of the Philippine Ambulatory Pediatric Association, Cebu City chapter, Dr. Alexander Tan, adult nephrologist and president of the PSN, Central and Eastern Visayas chapter and Dr. Rene Catan, orthopedic surgeon and Cebu provincial health officer to appear on my TV talkshow Straight from the Sky to help them in their advocacy to educate our people about the problems that could lead to “End Stage Kidney Failure” if left unchecked.

Last year on April, I was diagnosed with a kidney problem leading to a possible kidney failure. By the time I learned about my kidney problems, it was already too late to reverse the problem. As my daughter Katrina (she once worked as a nurse at the Asian Renal Center) did not want me to endure the pain of hemodialysis; hence, I opted for a pre-emptive kidney transplantation getting a go-signal from my nephrologist, Dr. Juliet Noel and my transplant surgeon, Dr. Alvin Roxas who operated on my donor and me last Nov. 8, 2016 at the Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center (VSMMC). Hence I’m now on my seventh month of being a transplant patient and still surviving.

As a journalist, I always wrote about my medical condition in order to help our readers be aware of potential kidney problems… mostly due to high blood sugar from diabetes mellitus and worsened by high-blood pressure. Thanks to former Health secretary Dr. Enrique T. Ona of the National Kidney & Transplant Institute (NKTI) who put in a kidney operating theater at the VSMMC in Cebu City and another one in Davao Medical Center. As Dra. Vivina Chiu told me during the show that by 2035 we could be seeing an epidemic of diabetes, which is quite alarming!

Statistics shows that last year there were 28,000 Filipinos having kidney problems or going through hemodialysis and this number continues to grow. At least 10% of the global population suffers from chronic kidney disease (CKD). I also learned that of the 28,000 Filipinos undergoing dialysis, only about 300 to 500 kidney transplantation are done annually… and this is due to the reality that it is not easy to find a suitable or matching donor. The NKTI said that there are 7,000 end-stage renal disease (ESRD) patients in dialysis waiting to get a suitable donor.

In relation to our kidney issues, last Monday, the Business Section of the Philippine STAR had this headline, “Senate mulls ‘fairer, more reasonable’ SSB tax.” This is about the excise tax for sugar-sweetened beverages (SSB), which was recently passed by Congress as part of the tax reform measures of the Duterte government. They were supposed to exact a P10 excise tax for every liter of SSB. But Sen. Sonny Angara came up with the idea of imposing an excise tax depending on the sugar content of the beverage.

But the Beverage Industry Association of the Philippines (BIAP) warned that these excise taxes would result in a P20 Billion decline in sales of SSB. It just makes me wonder what the BIAP is doing to warn SSB drinkers that taking their products could lead to obesity, diabetes or worse kidney disease!

The members of the BIAP must rake billions in profits annually… in return for the poor health of the poor Filipino people. At least the Tobacco Industry sheepishly agreed to have warning signs that Smoking is dangerous to your health. Perhaps Sen. Angara should include a warning sign by companies selling SSBs!

When it finally dawned on me that the decline of my kidney functions began many years before… it brought me into looking back at my unhealthy lifestyle, where I used to drink at least six bottles of soft drinks per day! Add the fact that I rarely went on a medical check up… proud of the fact that last year when I was 65-years old, I was never hospitalized for any reason. Then I was told of the problems of my kidneys, which hit me like a ton of bricks!

Sure I was able to avail of the Z-Package of Philhealth, which was a great financial help…but my kidney problems was still a financial burden. But thanks to my family and friends for their financial support. While I’m fast recovering, I still have to cope up with the huge financial cost for my daily medicines. This is a reality that kidney transplant patients have to go through life.

This is why I’m writing this piece to warn our readers that you too may be having kidney problems soon, but it can still be reversed if you visited your nephrologist. Have your check up now and perhaps you may just avoid bearing the huge cost of having a kidney transplant. So please don’t say that I didn’t warn you!

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