INSIDE
SPORTS Romeoville falls in sectional final Page 13
ELECTION Voter’s Guide November 2012 Page 3
Our Village, Our News
www.romeovillebugle.com
NOVEMBER 1, 2012
Vol. 7 No. 17
Renal care center opens in November By Laura Katauskas Staff Reporter
F
or 27-year-old Robert Pace, walking into the new state of the art dialysis center in Bolingbrook meant more than just reclining chairs, flat screen televisions and fireplaces. For him, the center means a better quality of life as he awaits a kidney transplant. Three times a week, four hours a day, on average, patients like Pace receive dialysis treatment to clear his kidney of toxins which it can no longer do on its own. Pace would normally have to drive to Naperville in an overcrowded facility with broken equipment at the likes of 5:30 a.m. to receive treatment. Eager to catch some extra needed
sleep and spend time with his four-year-old son, he said the new center is close enough for him to walk to if he had to. The growing need for such a center in the BolingbrookRomeoville area was prevalent with only one center in the Will County vicinity and the reason doctors Mohammed Ahmed and Anis Rouf pursued a new facility that would take care to a different level. The group contacted U.S. Renal Care on a mission to offer another option for renal, explaining that competition normally drives increased care. A year later, the company is now leasing space at 396 Remington Boulevard, near Adventist Medical Hospital, and have invested 2.5 million in the project.
“These patients have to endure this treatment for 12 hours a week—we want to make it as comfortable as it can be and make dialysis easier for the patient,” said Ahmed, who serves as the medical director. “This offers them a choice they didn’t have before…We have to do right by out patients.” That’s why the front-end investment including stone façade walls, a high-end aquarium, televisions with Comcast, DVDs, comfortable reclining chairs were important to Ahmed when building the facility. The equipment is stateof-the-art, but it was also about making the patient feel at home, trying to keep patients positive through an ordeal that most say is hard to take—for patients with
Paid for by Dave Carlson
kidney failure, without dialysis is death. “At least now I won’t feel like I am sitting in a hospital all the time—I can sit back and relax,” said Pace. Ahmed explains that renal disease itself is a precursor of diabetes and hypertension, two diseases that are running rampant today. He said it is expected that within 15 years the number of diabetes patients will double. In addition, renal disease is seen at a high percentage in the Hispanic and African American individuals. With a growing Hispanic population in Bolingbrook and throughout the area, the need for the community increases. Having had the opportunity to work at the Mayo Clinic where he learned patient care comes
first,Ahmed passionately believes in enriching patients lives and giving them the tools to do so. Diagnosed two months ago, Pace has a long road ahead of him, with most patients on an eight-year waiting list. The thought of receiving treatment at the new facility softens that blow a bit, says Pace, who has placed all his faith in Ahmed. “If it wasn’t for Dr. Ahmed, I would probably be dead already,” said Pace, who was diagnosed after being sent to the doctor after fainting on the job. Without insurance he rarely visited the doctor and the problem went undetected. With the help of Ahmed, he was able to get insurance and on a plan to help See RENAL CARE, page 9