Renal dialysis boost for region

Patients, in the north of the Moreton Bay Region, needing renal dialysis treatments no longer have to travel to North Lakes or Brisbane with services now available in Morayfield.

The B Braun Morayfield Renal Care Centre was officially opened at Morayfield Health Hub on October 20, with celebrations delayed for 18 months due to COVID-19.

The private clinic offers haemodialysis and holiday dialysis therapies and is owned by the German company B Braun which has 350 renal clinics globally, including seven in Australia.

B Braun Director Russ Hoskins said the company was excited to provide these services to such a fast-growing community.

He said the broad-based global healthcare company provided about 55,000 haemodialysis treatments a year to public and private patients.

“These treatments are both live saving and life enhancing,” Mr Hoskins said.

Australian Managing Director Christian Gabriel said there was a real need to increase the capacity of renal services in Australia, as the population ages and the risk of kidney disease rises.

The focus now is to make more people aware renal dialysis services are available at Morayfield.

“I’m very excited to hand over the clinic officially to the public now and I wish (Renal Care Centre Manager) Kylie Barron and the team all the best in providing exceptional care and services to our patients,” Mr Gabriel said.

“I would like our patients to really enjoy, as much as they can, the comfort and very safe, relaxing place here at Morayfield. I think that’s key – they spend a lot of time here.”

Investment in community

State Member for Morayfield Mark Ryan thanked the team for investing in the Morayfield community and becoming part of it.

“This is a day for celebration because we’re investing in a really good community and it is a community that has its challenges but also excitement for the future,” Mr Ryan said.

“There are a couple of unique things about our region. This region is the third biggest council area in Australia. It is one of the fastest growing in Australia. It actually has the fastest growing first nations populations in Australia as well.

“But some of the challenges are that we do have a lot of chronic health care needs connected to a variety of challenges – whether it’s family history, your social demographic background, or just lifestyle.

“Addressing those challenges is important and that’s where partnerships come into place, whether it’s partnerships between community organisations and government or business. I think there’s a very good message there that we always work better when we work together and certainly when we have private businesses, private health providers, working alongside communities and ultimately governments, we can get better outcomes for the community.

“I’m really pleased you’ve chosen of all places Morayfield, not only because it’s my home town but there is a great opportunity to demonstrate real advantage for people locally. We know that when you deliver health services closer to home, people have better outcomes. Also, when you invest in world-class facilities, world-class machines, world-class people, you actually give people confidence in the delivery of those health care services.”

Nine-year vision

Morayfield Health Hub Director Dr Evan Jones said the journey to build the facility started about nine years ago.

“We wanted to develop a high-quality, patient-centred, multi-disciplinary, community-based organisation and build great facilities and have great staff and great services within that,” Dr Jones said.

“When we spoke to community, one of the big things was renal disease. At that time, there were no renal dialysis units in this area. People were trying to get into North Lakes which had been set up under a Federal Government grant but lots of them were having to travel to Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital or to other private facilities down in Brisbane.”

He thanked B Braun for having the vision to make the investment in this community.

“It’s no small thing and the number of people who told me I would never get a renal dialysis unit in this community is legion and because of your confidence and because of your foresight, it’s here. We want to see it flourish and grow now,” he said.

Federal Member for Longman Terry Young said providing healthcare services was essential to a fast-growing region and he’s grateful to Dr Jones and B Braun for their vision.

“That’s what we need in this country is people who have got vision and who are going to set us up for the future and that’s exactly what this is about,” Mr Young said.

He said his role was to make sure the community knew the facility was there.

“They need to get services where they are, they’re already traumatised and they need to take the trauma of travel out of it,” he said.

The centre is at Morayfield Doctors Health Hub, Suite 1 Level 2, 19-31 Dickson Rd, Morayfield.

It is open Monday, Wednesday and Friday from 7am-2pm.

For more information, head to the website