We offer free lifelong community support services to people with kidney failure in the Northland, Auckland, Waikato, Bay of Plenty, Lakes, Tairawhiti and Hawkes Bay regions. This includes people on dialysis and with a functioning kidney transplant as well as people who will soon need to make treatment decisions – dialysis, a kidney transplant or keeping as well as possible without these treatments – i.e. people with less than 20% remaining kidney function.
Today close to 3000 families in our regions are registered with the Society for free lifelong services. People from other areas whose treatment is managed through their regional hospitals sometimes choose to join the Society as paying members to receive the Kidney Society magazine and have access to some services.
We encourage people to join as financial members at a cost of $20 per year, to foster a feeling of ownership and participation in what we promote as a “patients for patients” organisation. However our services are available to all eligible patients whether paying members or not, and opportunities exist for people to contribute to the Society in other ways they feel comfortable with. Most of our services are free and provided thanks to public donation.
Sign up as a paying member and pay your subscription here
The Society operates at two levels:
- Working with public health services and health professionals
- Working with people with kidney failure and their families
The Society sees its major role as the support system to both the healthcare services and the patient. We keep healthcare professionals aware of the ways in which treatment services are, and could best be delivered from a patient’s perspective, and also ensure that patients and their families understand how they can get the best out of their treatment and healthcare services.
The Society regards itself as having a major role in creating positive attitudes and constructive ways of dealing with kidney failure to maximise quality of life and individually acceptable lifestyles.
The Society is based at the Kidney Society Centre, a modified residential property in Papatoetoe, Auckland, very close to Middlemore Hospital and its dialysis units.
The Society works closely with staff at the various hospitals providing dialysis and transplant services in our region while remaining strictly independent. We place great emphasis on being seen as an independent community service for patients, providing support outside the hospital environment.
Communication between ourselves and healthcare service providers is frequent and mutually valued. Our participation in planning and reviewing of services for kidney patients based at hospitals in our region is regularly invited.
While the Society is independent, there is frequent and positive interaction with other kidney patient organisations throughout the country.
The Society has a strong association with Kidney Health New Zealand although both organisations are separate and independent from each other. Kidney Health NZ has a much wider purpose than the Society and focuses on prevention, research, national advocacy and education for all patients with kidney disease from mild impairment to kidney failure. It also provides some indirect patient support services through links with other regional and local kidney patient societies and groups. The Society works with Kidney Health NZ on relevant projects but takes care to maintain its focus on working directly with and for people with end stage kidney failure at all times.
