As part of efforts to speed up access to kidney-dialysis services at the Spanish Town Hospital, the Ministry of Health and the Environment has recruited a United States company to examine and correct problems identified in the water treatment system at the recently established Katie Hoo Haemodialysis Centre.

Representatives from the Florida-based company Renal Dynamics will arrive in the island today.

Health Minister Rudyard Spencer made the disclosure Monday during a meeting with the managers of the Spanish Town Hospital and its supervisory body, the South East Regional Health Authority.

Referring to the importance of meeting the local demand for renal dialysis services, Spencer said there was an urgent need for the centre to become operational.

Approximately 900 new cases of end-stage renal failure are diagnosed in Jamaica annually. At present, these cases are managed at three main public facilities islandwide - the Kingston Public Hospital, University Hospital of the West Indies and the Cornwall Regional Hospital.

Spencer said that the ministry was working overtime to ensure that the facility becomes operational in a matter of weeks. The minister said the centre is crucial to improving access to dialysis service for persons with renal failure in St Catherine.

The Katie Hoo Haemodialysis Centre, named after the mother of Ernest Hoo who donated the facility, was officially opened on April 24. Hoo's mom died at the Spanish Town Hospital in 1965 because medical personnel were unable to source a bottle of oxygen to save her life.

"The centre will be ready to accept patients as soon as the water system used in the dialysis process meets the requirements, in keeping with the advice of the experts from Florida," Spencer said.