A renal patient from the Mdantsane township in the Eastern Cape is hopeful that she will get a kidney donor in 2018.
Thirty-five-year-old Andiswa Busakwe was diagnosed with kidney failure in 2008.
She is one of thousands of South Africans with renal chronic disease.
There is also a growing concern about the increase in chronic renal diseases in the country.
Busakwe says she has to travel three times a week to Frere Hospital in East London to receive dialysis.
“I don’t like festive season at all because all my friends, my family, they are having fun and me I don’t have that. I am always here stuck in this machines here and I am supposed to be there in (the) beach, but for me, I am always stuck on the machines.”
The provincial Health Department says there are only three dialysis centres in the province.
Dr Alan Gordon, from Frere Hospital, says there is a huge backlog of patients in need of dialysis who are not getting it because of the lack of facilities.
“We probably cover about 2 million of patients in total and we only got 76 spaces now. Each year, we should be taking about 200 to 300 and we can’t take patients of dialysis because they are not transplantable.”
