A Tahlequah doctor says the high rate of kidney disease in the area means that treatment of the 100th dialysis patient in a new program is an important milestone.

Dr. James Madison, a nephrologist at Tahlequah City Hospital, said the large number of Native Americans has created a demand for the 6-month-old dialysis services department.

“Tahlequah is really over-represented in the burden of kidney disease,” he said. “And in large part, it’s the result of the sort of epidemic of diabetes and hypertension in this area.”

Madison said the unique needs of the local population are being met with the latest tools.

“To be able to provide inpatient dialysis using real sophisticated techniques and do open heart surgeries and treat a whole lot of specialty patients, and to have urology and nephrology; these are the kind of sub-specialty services that you see in larger metropolitan areas,” he said. “But here we are in Tahlequah doing it, so it is a nice milestone that is new in the community and being utilized very, very fully.”

Cindy Walkingstick, 60, who retired from TCH three years ago, unexpectedly found herself in treatment there as the 100th dialysis patient.

“I’ve been on dialysis for two weeks,” she said. “I’m diabetic, I had a heart attack in 2002, and I had two bypasses in 2005. So my blood doesn’t get to all parts of my body very well. My kidneys have paid the price.”

The treatments are four hours each, three days a week. Walkingstick said they are crucial to her health, and she has been happy with how she was treated.

“I haven’t felt this good in months and months,” she said.

Six months ago, Tahlequah City Hospital saw roughly the same number of renal patients as they see now, Madison said. But, patients who required dialysis were sent to Tulsa, which was a hardship for families who had to pay for gas, navigate Tulsa traffic and worry about the weather.

The hospital recruited Madison to Tahlequah to address that problem.

“We built this program for inpatient dialysis, and within the first six months of being open and available, we were able to deliver treatment to 100 patients,” he said. “It’s kind of a milestone because we do this with two machines, one physician and one nurse. For this size facility, it’s really a very impressive thing that they are doing here.”

Getting the treatment in Tahlequah also is good for the patients in other ways, Madison said.

“Their family members come to the hospital, they’re in the same community that we’re in, so they get treated like family at this facility whereas, in Tulsa they might not. It’s really comforting for patients to have their family members around,” he said. “So it’s really good for their mental outlook.”