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The unit, which is at capacity with existing funding, currently treats 14 patients. However, in a letter to the Greater Southern Area Health Service, Dr Gavin Carney says a further nine are ready to start treatment.

“Of that nine, four require dialysis as this letter is dictated and another four or five can wait for about a month,” he said. “The demand for renal replacement services is increasing exponentially, and the mathematics and the cost to the community have been well sorted. Not funding dialysis services is unconscionable as either the patients die, withdraw from therapy because it is all just a bit too much, are treated poorly because they can’t access services, or, for those who are very wealthy, they travel widely to various other dialysis units for their treatment.”

Dr Carney said the crisis at Moruya Hospital needed urgent attention.

In December, Tuross Head resident Keith Mathieson was diagnosed with kidney cancer. Before he can be placed on the donor transplant list he must undergo at least four years of painful dialysis treatment.

Mr Mathieson was receiving treatment at Canberra Hospital yesterday so was unable to comment, but his mother Edna described the lack of local services as “shocking”.

“I rang (the Moruya Renal Unit) to book Keith’s treatment and was told there was a definite delay. I asked them what could be done and they said they had to wait for funding,” she said.

“I’m absolutely devastated because I see first hand the effect on his body the travel is having. Mentally it makes him feel like it’s too hard to carry on.”

Patients on dialysis treatment are hooked up to a special machine, at least three times a week, for hours on end.

Eurobodalla Renal Support Group coordinator Brad Rossiter spent seven years on dialysis.