The Bright Satellite Dialysis Unit is celebrating its 20th anniversary today (4 July) – coinciding with the NHS’s 75th birthday celebrations.
The Unit, which is located at Southmead Hospital and run by North Bristol Trust, will be celebrating with cake and activities for patients and staff past and present.
Dialysis is a type of treatment that replicates many of the functions of the kidneys when there are problems with kidney function.
The Unit first opened in January 2003 with just 12 patients and then gradually expanded over the following six months to full capacity, dialysing 42 patients a day. The Unit, which was originally called the Brunel Satellite Dialysis Unit, was officially opened in 2003 by Frank Shipsides, a well-known local artist who was also a former patient at the Unit. He also donated two of his paintings to the Unit, which are still on display today.
The unit changed its name to the Bright Satellite Dialysis Unit in 2013 to avoid confusion ahead of the opening of the Brunel building. Its name comes from Dr Richard Bright, a Bristol-born physician and early pioneer of renal medicine. Dr Bright helped to make Bristol one of the leading centres for nephrology in the country.
Some patients have been receiving treatment at the Unit since its opening – and many of the staff have been there just as long. Dialysis patients need 3 treatments a week, allowing patients and staff to build rapport over long periods of time.
Jane Chandler, the sister who oversees the unit, said: “The team here is very friendly, caring, and lovely. They enjoy working here. Twenty years is quite a milestone so we thought a birthday celebration was a great idea."
Satellite dialysis units allow patients greater flexibility as they can access treatment in locations closer to their homes. In the 1990s before satellite units opened patients had to travel to one of the regional centres for their dialysis.
The Bright Dialysis Unit was only the second satellite unit to open in the area after the Ambleside unit in Weston. An increase in patients that require dialysis over the last twenty years now means that NBT has four satellite dialysis Units; Weston, South Bristol, Cossham and Bright with support from Fresenius-run units at Bath and Frome.