The Lakeshore General Hospital’s dialysis unit, located within the Interlake-Eastern Regional Health Authority, was the most recent unit to receive an updated water system.

A entirely new water system was installed in the 10-station unit this past spring leading to a launch date of May 28, 2019.

To complete the project the new system had to be installed in three phases during the unit’s off hours. Only one day of patient treatments were shifted from a Monday to a Tuesday to allow for necessary testing. Dialysis treatments then continued as regularly scheduled.

The new system is a dual stage reverse osmosis (RO) system that provides built-in redundancy. If either ‘stage’ of the RO system have technical issues, the system can be placed into emergency mode very easily ensuring no disruption in dialysis treatments running on either stage separately.

Manitoba Renal Program’s Winnipeg-based dialysis technologists now have remote monitoring access to the system for trouble shooting and analysis of operating data in real-time. There are many benefits of the new system including lower utility operational costs of about $5,350 per year, full automation with the Fresenius 5008 dialysis machine operation and less use of chemicals due to heat disinfection technology.

With this installation, 12 out of 16 local renal health centres are now operating with the same type of water system. The next unit scheduled for water system improvements is the Garden Hill dialysis unit.