Little is said about it, yet between 2 and 3 million people in France have kidney disease. This has two risks, increased cardiovascular morbidity and the risk of developing renal failure terminal. The States General of the Kidney estimate in their report made Monday that they are 70,000 to suffer from this renal failure. To heal her two solutions exist: dialysis (a medical technique that filters the blood of its impurities) and transplantation. 55% of the 70,000 people with renal failure are on dialysis and 45% have a transplant.
Barriers to access to kidney transplants
Kidney transplantis recognized by specialists as the best treatment because the gains in life expectancy and quality of life far exceed those obtained with dialysis, which is more painful. Kidney transplantation is also less expensive than dialysis: the average cost of one year of transplant follow-up amounts to € 20,000, against around € 80,000 for the year of dialysis, recalls the Renaloo patient association. Despite the indisputable advantages of transplantation, dialysis remains the most widely practiced.
The least educated the most penalized
Difficulties in accessing a transplant are also measured in terms of social inequalities: the less educated categories are generally less informed and less well advised. They also suffer more from diabetes, obesity and vascular nephropathies. However, these pathologies are not compatible with a kidney transplant. These patients are ultimately doubly penalized since the dialysis they use weakens the body more than the transplant. Dialysis makes it all the more complicated to pursue a professional activity. The activity rate of dialysis patients without a diploma would be fifteen times lower than that of transplant recipients and graduates of higher education, according to Why-Doctor.
The Renaloo association, in an open letter to the Minister of Health published in the Huffington Post, sums up the extent of these difficulties: “people treated by dialysis are faced with profound difficulties of access and maintenance in the employment, often linked to a logic of care which clashes with that of work, with loss of income, impoverishment, desocialization, immense obstacles to the realization of projects “.
