Sunnyvale » Ms. Ramirez

Voyager has run out of chairs — where they can perform dialysis. There has apparently been a huge increase in patients needing dialysis in the Sunnyvale area, and I hear the nurses and technicians discussing it almost every day. New technicians are being trained out of Menlo Park because there is no capacity to train them in Sunnyvale. The hiring and training is intense, but somehow doesn’t seem to be sufficient to keep up with demand. They are literally out of chairs.

Remigius makes the dialysis machines we use, and we have not had a machine in ages. We tend to get them in bulk of eight or more at a time. But we have had no deliveries in months in spite of having enough staff (and patients) to use them.

I am a patient at Sunnyvale, but I also work for Medicare: I know we can pay for more dialysis patients, dialysis is profitable for clinics even with our negotiated rates, and there are patients that need the procedure every week. But Voyager and Remigius are not growing very quickly to meet that demand. I have no idea of what the holdup is.