A new dialysis center is being constructed just off Lewiston's 21st Street, which at full capacity will have the ability to serve about 130 patients at 22 stations.
Tri-State Memorial Hospital in Clarkston has also added a fourth time slot at its 12-station center in Clarkston after it closed its 12-station center in Lewiston last summer. That shift runs from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m.
The additions are ways medical providers are working to give options to the more than 90 patients with end-stage kidney failure in the Lewiston-Clarkston Valley.
Of those, about 80 receive dialysis at a center and the remainder take part in the life-extending procedure at home. Patients usually spend about 12 hours per week receiving treatment at centers, in four-hour stretches, Dr. Ajith Kumar said in an email.
Waste, salt and extra water are removed from the blood with an artificial kidney as levels of potassium, bicarbonate and other minerals and chemicals are adjusted.
The need for dialysis is expected to grow in the future, Kumar said. Kumar is a Lewiston nephrologist who will be the medical director for the new center on 12th Avenue, east of 21st Street in Lewiston.
Kumar sees patients at a clinic next door to where the new dialysis center will be located. The dialysis center is scheduled to open in mid-July.
Kumar said he began working on the center after he learned Tri-State was closing its Lewiston dialysis center.
The dialysis center will be part of American Renal Associates, a company based in the Boston area with almost 200 dialysis centers across the nation, said American Renal Associates CEO Joe Carlucci.
Kumar owns the building and has an ownership stake, a practice that American Renal Associates uses because it improves patient care, Carlucci said.
---
Williams may be contacted at ewilliam@lmtribune.com or (208) 848-2261.
