For kidney patients across Nigeria, the Federal Government’s 2023 promise to subsidise dialysis to N12,000 per session remains a mirage. At teaching hospitals, patients are still charged N40,000 to N50,000 per session. With three sessions required weekly, many simply stop coming. Doctors say they watch patients die in waiting rooms, cash in hand, but not enough, writes PATIENCE IVIE IHEJIRIKA
When the federal government announced in early 2025 that the cost of kidney dialysis in selected federal hospitals would drop from about N50,000 to N12,000 per session, thousands of Nigerians living with chronic kidney disease breathed a sigh of relief. For the first time, many believed they could finally afford the life-saving treatment required at least twice a week to stay alive.
However, a few months later, that hope thinned out, replaced by frustration, long queues, broken machines and in some cases, avoidable deaths.
The subsidy, approved under President Bola Tinubu’s health sector reforms, was designed to cushion the financial burden on renal patients and expand dialysis access nationwide.
The intervention was hailed as a breakthrough and a long-awaited relief, but patients said the reality never lived up to the announcement. A patient at the National Hospital Abuja, Edwarie Victory Crown, who has been on dialysis for two years now, said he spends about 200,000 weekly for dialysis and diet.
“I’ve been on dialysis for two years now. I was diagnosed in January 2024 at the University of Benin Teaching Hospital (UBTH). Once a week at first… until last year when I came to Zenith Hospital for transplant evaluation and moved my dialysis to National Hospital Abuja. Now it’s twice a week,” he said.
Edwarie, a senior registration officer with the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), said the struggle is not only physical. It is financial, psychological and deeply personal.
At UBTH, Edwarie recalled that while the subsidy programme was on, “They brought just two machines. Two machines for over 400 patients. If you use the federal government machine today, you may not get your turn again for four weeks.”
At the National Hospital in Abuja, the situation is no better. “With about 500 patients, they have just five functional machines. By 7 a.m today, only three machines were working; the others had broken down. Without functioning machines and consumables, the subsidised rate exists only “on paper,” he said.
Edwarie told LEADERSHIP Sunday that aside from dialysis, patients also buy blood-boosting injections such as erythropoietin. “Recumor is almost N20,000. You take two a week, which amounts to N40,000,” he explained.
Between dialysis, drugs, special diet, and transport, Edwarie said he spends about N200,000 every week, exactly what he earns monthly.
“So, you depend on people. And you don’t even have the energy to work or diversify income. You end up selling the little you have just to live,” he said.
Also lamenting, a protocol officer at the National Assembly, Mr. Boniface Ugwu, said he has watched his wife fight kidney disease for nearly five years.
Expressing his frustration, Mr Ugwu said, “The government said dialysis was subsidised. It was a lie. They only did it for a few months.
Even within these few months, patients still paid more than the announced N12,000.
He told LEADERSHIP Sunday that each dialysis session costs his family N50,000 to N60,000, two sessions per week, for almost five years. “I have sold many of my properties. People die here because they cannot buy consumables. If you don’t buy all items, the machine cannot work,” he said.
“For years, health insurance has not existed here at the National Hospital, Abuja. They collect N25,000 from patients under health insurance coverage and still ask them to pay again. It is wrong.
“Yesterday, people died here. People die every day. We need help,” he said.
Waiting in the queue for her son’s turn, Mrs Cindy Nabanachan said her 23-year-old son has been on dialysis for two years.
“I beg every week. I buy consumables N60,000 every Monday and every Thursday. Minus drugs.”
