Jakarta, IO – The kidney is an organ with multiple functions. These include expelling toxins and metabolism remnants through urine, maintaining the balance of electrolytes and fluids in the body, excreting hormones that regulate blood pressure, generating active-form vitamin D that maintains the strength and health of the bones, and producing the hormone erythropoietin that generates the red blood cells (erythrose). During the process, because of various factors, they kidney may suffer from either acute or chronic kidney disorder (“CKD”).
“Acute kidney disorder occurs suddenly, within a matter of days, and it is generally treatable. On the contrary, CKD lasts for at least three months, and you cannot recover the kidney’s function if you catch it. Doctors usually will only be able to make efforts to prevent patients from suffering kidney failure, or a GFR score of < 15, which necessitates therapy to replace the kidney’s function. Unfortunately, most CKD sufferers show no symptoms. Symptoms will only appear when the disease is in an advanced stage. Therefore, we must be wary if we suffer from leg swellings, difficulties breathing, low stamina, seizures, or loss of consciousness,” warned Dr. dr. Aida Lydia, Sp.PD-KGH, General Chairwoman of the Indonesian Nephrologists’ Association (Perhimpunan Nefrologi Indonesia – “Pernefri”), in the “Improvement of JKN Services for Dialysis Patients” discussion held on Wednesday (15/2/2023).
In 2018, no fewer than 713,783 Indonesian citizens suffered from CKD. They require costly therapies, including hemodialysis, continuous ambulatory peritoneal dialysis – “CAPD), or even kidney transplants. As CKD patients must remain in therapy until the end of their lives, the disease is listed in the Catastrophic Disease category of our National Health Security (“NHS”) program managed by BPJS Kesehatan. However, the program needs improvement from many aspects, including the technical regulations for health service, medicine service, and technical execution therapy.