(Newswire.net — February 12, 2015) — Montreal, Canada – Patients with kidney failure life are dependent on a machine that clears toxins from blood. They have to go to the hospital every second day to do dialysis. so the half of their life since they experience kidney failure they spent in a hospital hooked to a dialysis machine.
Some of them have enough money to install thousands of dollars worth of machines into their homes, other have enough luck to receive a new kidney from a donor, however, most of the patients are struggling to live a decent life.
Anya Pogharian, 17, was volunteering at a hospital dialysis unit when she found the inspiration for an unusual high school science project: A more efficient dialysis machine that would be easier on patients suffering from kidney failure.
“It takes a lot of energy out of them,” Pogharian told CBC News of the traditional four-hour, multiple-visits-a-week procedure. “They’re very tired after a dialysis treatment.”
After spent around 300 working hours on a project, Pogharian’s non-profit driven reasoning resulted in a fully functional dialysis machine. The prototype is not only affordable, but it is also small and easy to carry.
“You wouldn’t have to make your way to the hospital, which is a problem for a lot of patients. It’s not necessarily easy to make your way to the hospital three times a week, especially it you have limited mobility,” she said.
Her dialysis machine prototype would cost around $500 to buy, compared to the $30,000 it currently costs to purchase a machine. It is compact and light and could fit in a suitcase.
Héma-Québec hospital was so impressed with Pogharian’s invention and its potential to cut medical costs and hospitalization stays that they have offered the Pogharian a summer internship to test her machine with real blood.
According to CBC, the project has also earned “a slew of scholarships and awards.” Pogharian told CBC News that she hopes her machine will eventually be used overseas.
“Ten per cent of patients living in India and Pakistan who need the treatment can’t afford it or can’t have it in any way. It’s not accessible. So that motivated me,” she said.
The fact that teenager build portable and affordable dialysis machine could change the perspective of the companies who earn their profit on a stand that producing such a sophisticated machine is too complicated, thus adequately expensive.