City-based Nephro Care India Ltd (NCIL) has set up a renal care clinic at Alipurduar in West Bengal to cater to the growing demand for advanced diagnostic and pharmacy support for kidney patients in the State. Plans are afoot to take the total number of renal care clinics to 22 by March 2026, of which nine units will be established across the various districts of the State. NCIL, which is a leading multi-speciality healthcare provider in East India, offers a wide range of clinical and lifestyle solutions and renal insufficiency treatment to patients with the treatment framework covering the entire range of lifestyle, physiological and spiritual aspects of wellness. Government estimates suggest, nearly 2,20,000 patients develop ESRD (end stage renal disease) in India, leading to an additional annual dialysis demand of 34 million treatment sessions. However, India presently has nearly 5,000 existing dialysis centres (including 1353 centres under PMNDP).

This capacity will not be sufficient to meet the upcoming demand as the disease has been gaining traction due to various sociological, lifestyle and environmental factors, Dr Pratim Sengupta, a senior nephrologist and MD of Nephro Care India, said, highlighting the need for setting up more such centres across the country. NCIL has a vision of reaching out and impacting lives of close to one million patients suffering from chronic kidney disease by setting up 300 such centres across the country in the next 10-15 years. “Studies indicate that India is adding close to 2,20,000 ESRD patients each year. On an average nearly 15 per cent of the country’s population suffers from high blood sugar levels and nearly 22 per cent from hypertension or high blood pressure. Both these conditions pose a high risk for developing renal diseases. Moreover, one of the biggest challenges that India faces is that of OTC (over the counter) medicines which also leads to an exponential rise in burden of kidney disease. Inadequate infrastructure and limited access to specialized renal care are some of the major challenges contributing to the high burden of end-stage kidney disease in India,” Dr Sengupta said.