Patients, Nurses Call For More Regulation Of Dialysis Clinics

A group of patients and nurses is calling for more regulation of dialysis clinics which they claim are often operating under unsafe conditions.

They're supporting a Democratic state Senate bill that would require clinics to have mandatory transition times between appointments to give kidney disease patients more time to rest after having their blood filtered.

Banbury Holmes is a dialysis patient who says he was so rushed at a Bay Area clinic, one time he passed out and another time he started bleeding.

"Dialysis is supposed to be life-saving," says Holmes. "But some of them take it to the point where its like a factory. You know, you're rushing people in, you're doing the dialysis and you're getting them out of there. And there's emotion there. You know, you can't get out of that."

A coalition of doctors, nurses and clinics opposed to the bill says the mandatory transition time of 45 minutes would lead to significantly fewer patients being served.

There are more than 63,00 dialysis patients in California.