| [ Summary ] |
Oceania is a popular travel destination for Japanese tourists, with high quality medical service being available. Australian dialysis units often offer Japanese travelers temporary hemodialysis service. Hemodialysis is usually performed there in a sitting position with a QB of 3OO - 350 ml / min. While the cost of medical service is covered by Australian medicare for Australian citizens, Japanese tourists must use the pay back system operating between the Japanese and Australian medicare systems. At the end of 2004, the number of patients with ESRD was 14,221 in Australia and 2,994 in New Zealand. Those numbers are increasing at the rate of 4 % a year. Cases receiving in-home dialysis or peritoneal dialysis are not rare. Overall, the yearly death rate for these patients is 15.4 % in Australia and 17.3 % in New Zealand. The rate has not increased despite an increase in the average age of ESRD patients. More than 20 % of the deaths were caused by the discontinuation of dialysis therapy. Renal transplantation has been performed in those countries since the 1960's. Although more than a half of the cases involve cadaveric transplantation, the number of cases employing living donor transplantation has increased recently. Even children under four years old commonly receive kidney transplantats. |