I have seen technicians engage in distracting conversations when inserting or removing needles from people. In all my years on dialysis, I have never seen a government surveyor review a facility where I have dialyzed. In fact, I am unaware of any surveys of any facilities where I have dialyzed. I am greatly concerned as a dialysis patient about oversight of this industry. Yet, today I appear before you, in the public forum, as a dialysis patient, because of the importance of the issues being discussed here today.
Patients can and do lead productive, purposeful lives.
However, it has become an increasing burden to do so. Monitoring a technician's abilities during every treatment, week after week, is a tremendously stressful undertaking for a dialysis patient. Enduring the limits and inadequacies of the present system of dialysis compound the already difficult treatment into an intolerable, unjustifiable, and inexcusably frustrating experience. My purpose today in appearing before this committee was to present the life of a dialysis patient to you. It is my life, and that of many others.