Governor General launches Kidney Health Week
The Governor General and Patron in Chief of Kidney Health Australia, Her Excellency Ms Quentin Bryce AC, launched Kidney Health Week 2009.
Anne Wilson, chief executive of Kidney Health Australia, said with one in three Australians at increased risk of kidney disease, the need for people to keep their blood pressure down to reduce the risk of damaging their kidneys is a major target in the battle against chronic kidney disease (CKD) in Australia.
Ms Wilson said, “high blood pressure affects one in four Australians and recent research has revealed that 50% of patients do not have blood pressure managed to the target levels.
“Research has also shown that 80% of patients with failed kidneys had high blood pressure which is a major contributor to chronic kidney disease with CKD being responsible for 12% of all hospital admissions in 2007,” she said.
Australian Bureau of Statistics figures released earlier this year showed that diseases of the kidney and urinary tract have jumped to 10th on the leading cause of death list, with 3,230 deaths in 2007 being attributed as the single underlying cause.
The rate of Australians receiving dialysis and kidney transplants has shot up by more than a quarter, new figures show.
CKD was a factor in nearly one in 10 deaths in 2006 and more than one million hospitalisations in 2006-07, according to an Australian Institute of Health and Welfare report.
Between 2000 and 2007, the rate of people receiving dialysis and kidney transplants for the treatment of end-stage kidney disease rose by 26%. Over the same period, the number of new cases of end-stage kidney disease attributed to diabetes increased by almost two thirds in people aged 55 years and older.
