Rugby player adds to call for dialysis treatment

TONGA – A former Tongan international rugby player, who says he is stranded overseas because of kidney disease, has added his voice to calls for dialysis treatment to be provided.

Sione Vaiomo’unga, 27, played for Tonga at the 2011 Rugby World Cup before securing a contract to play in Romania.

But in 2014, he was diagnosed with kidney disease, and has remained in the eastern European country for dialysis treatment because it is not available in Tonga.

Vaiomo’unga said he is uncertain how he would have fared had he been diagnosed in Tonga, where hundreds of people are said to be in need of dialysis, according to the Tonga Dialysis Foundation.

The foundation said this week that it had been waiting for more than a year for the government to write a letter of support so private donors could fund a clinic.

Instead, the government said it was focussing on the prevention and management of diabetes rather than dialysis.

But Vaiomo’unga, who is hoping for a kidney transplant so he can return to Tonga and see his parents for the first time in three years, said the government needed to look after its people.

The Tongan government has said it does not have the finances to provide dialysis treatment but is aiming to address rates of renal failure and kidney disease by managing rates of diabetes first.

Dialysis treatment is currently unavailable in the country despite around 200 people being diagnosed with chronic kidney failure each year, and about a third of those needing such treatment.

- RNZI