Kids get behind Kidney Awareness Week

The Children's Hospital at Westmead is getting behind the Australian Kidney Foundation's Kidney Awareness Week from Saturday 2 June to Saturday 9 June 2001. Most people don't associate kidney problems with young children, but The Children's Hospital at Westmead knows all too well that kids can be affected by a range of kidney conditions and we are best equipped to treat these cases.

The Children's Hospital at Westmead treats the majority of children within New South Wales who experience kidney failure and made a total of 1870 visits to inpatients and 2170 outpatient visits during the last year, for a range of kidney problems. We typically treat around 70 children at various stages of renal treatment at any one time.

We also opened the Mary Honan Renal Treatment Centre in March 2001, which specifically addresses the needs of children requiring dialysis treatment resulting from kidney failure. This Centre can accommodate more than double the number of patients we could previously treat at one time and a special room has also been installed as a multi-sensory area to help children relax during the more unpleasant parts of their treatment.

According to records held by the Australia and New Zealand Dialysis and Transplant Registry, there are close to 300 children aged 0-19 being treated for kidney failure. Around 75 per cent of these children have a functioning kidney transplant. The Children's Hospital at Westmead performed ten kidney transplants during the 1999-2000 financial year and has performed seven kidney transplants so far this financial year.

Kidney transplant patients are not "cured" - they always have to take medicine, have regular check-ups and are always at risk of having to return to dialysis treatment should their body reject the newly transplanted organ.

Although it is fairly uncommon for children to develop serious kidney problems, it is still very important that parents are aware of the signs of kidney disease. These can include high blood pressure, swelling due to fluid accumulation, urine that has blood in it that is obvious to the naked eye and a failure to grow and develop properly.

Urinary tract infections in children can also indicate kidney abnormalities. If your child is displaying signs of a urinary tract infection, such as a fever without obvious cause, we encourage you to get a culture of your child's urine. Children can also have high blood pressure when they are not displaying other symptoms of kidney problems, so parents should be encouraged to ask their doctor to check their child's blood pressure.

Adults should also be very aware of the possibility of kidney problems. According to the Australian Kidney Foundation, up to half a million Australians are suffering from kidney failure and most of them are unaware they even have a problem. The symptoms of kidney disease are gradual and relatively painless, and many people do not notice or simply disregard symptoms until the disease has progressed to near kidney failure.

For all media enquiries, please contact:

Julie Stromborg
Public Relations Officer
Ph: (02) 9845 3580
Fax: (02) 9845 3567
Pager: (02) 9845 0000 and quote page no. 6920