The holiday season is over, and my travelling schedule is back in full swing. I am just back from my first port of call for 2013 – Taiwan. And it was my first visit there – a memorable trip, thanks to a very warm welcome from ISN Councillor, Chih-Wei Yang, and his colleagues.
I visited the biggest haemodialysis unit I have ever seen (150 stations), and heard about some very large PD programs, and impressive CKD management programs.
Best of all I learnt about Taiwan’s unique and remarkable achievement – the only country in the world to very significantly reduce the incidence of ESRD in recent years. (Quite a few including the UK have stopped the incidence rising; only Taiwan has reversed it). A true partnership between the Taiwanese Society of Nephrology and the Taiwanese government, with a broad strategy including banning all herbal medicines containing aristolochic acid, as well as energetic and growing CKD management . Many other countries can learn from this experience – which Taiwanese colleagues are more than happy to share.
I had the chance to meet the Taiwanese Minister of Health, who is very supportive of the CKD efforts. He is a neurosurgeon who has successfully introduced compulsory use of seat belts – with the predicted positive effect on rates of head injury, but negative effect on the number of deceased kidney donors! It was a friendly meeting and he appreciated the irony of this! But he is very positive about all the kidney care strategies they have started, including plans for increasing kidney transplantation which is still an underused treatment in Taiwan.
Heathrow airport is once again becoming very familiar to me from now until WCN2013 in Hong Kong at the end of May, and I will be keeping you posted about my other destinations.