[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 17 (Tuesday, February 26, 2002)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E199]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




          FORTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THE NORTHWEST KIDNEY CENTERS

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                           HON. JIM McDERMOTT

                             of washington

                    in the house of representatives

                       Tuesday, February 26, 2002

  Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, forty years ago January 1962, in Seattle, 
Wash., a major development in health care occurred with the opening of 
the Seattle Artificial Kidney Center as the world's first out-of-
hospital dialysis unit.
  Two years previously, Dr. Belding Scribner, head of the Division of 
Nephrology at the University of Washington, together with surgeon David 
Dillard and engineer Wayne Quinton, inserted a small length of bent 
Teflon tubing into the forearm of Clyde Shields who was dying of 
chronic kidney failure--now known as end-stage renal disease (ESRD). 
This device, known as the Scribner shunt, first made possible the long-
term treatment of ESRD patients by the artificial kidney. Several other 
patients began treatment shortly thereafter and also survived, and so 
it soon became obvious that this was a successful treatment for a 
previously fatal disease.
  Because of Dr. Scribner's concern that funds were not available to 
provide this expensive treatment, in 1961 he approached Dr. James 
Haviland, then President of the King County Medical Society, to 
consider development of a center to provide dialysis for ESRD patients 
in the state of Washington. As a result of the efforts of these two 
physicians, the King County Medical Society, the Washington State 
Medical Association and the Seattle Area Hospital Council cooperated 
with private individuals to open and out-of-hospital, freestanding 
community-supported dialysis center in Seattle. This was the first time 
that dialysis was provided outside a hospital and supervised by nurses 
rather than by physicians. the Seattle Artificial Kidney Center, now 
the Northwest Kidney Center, served as a prototype for the development 
of dialysis units around the world. Over the next several years, the 
Center developed training manuals for physicians, nurses and 
technicians. At the same time, and for years thereafter, physicians and 
other health care personnel from this and many other countries came to 
Seattle to visit the Center and learn from its program.
  Continuing concern about the high cost of dialysis led to the 
development of home dialysis in Seattle. London and Boston in the early 
1960s. This proved highly beneficial for patients and became a major 
treatment alternative at the Seattle Artificial Kidney Center. Today, 
the Northwest Kidney Centers still has the largest home hemodialysis 
program in the United States.
  Also in the 1960's and early 1970's, Dr. Scribner, Dr. Christopher 
Blagg and other physicians worked with Senators Jackson and Magnuson to 
introduce national legislation to assist in the support of ESRD 
patients. These efforts culminated in 1972, when Public Law 92-603 was 
enacted into law and extended Medicare coverage for dialysis treatment 
and kidney transplantation to almost all ESRD patients in this country.
  Over the last 40 years, the Northwest Kidney Center has been a 
leader, respected both nationally and internationally, for providing 
high quality care for ESRD patients. It has treated many thousands of 
patients over the years, and now serves more than a thousand dialysis 
patients in eleven dialysis units throughout Kind County. Together with 
the University of Washington, it has played an important role in 
research and the development of dialysis techniques and technology, and 
in the training of kidney specialists from around the world. The 
efforts of its staff have also been influential with the Congress, 
agencies of the Federal Government, the Washington State Government and 
various of the health care organizations involved in the care of ESRD 
patients in helping to see that the Medicare ESRD Program meets the 
aims of its founders.
  At this time, there are more than 350,000 dialysis patients and more 
than 3,500 dialysis units in this country, and about one million 
patients on dialysis worldwide. It thus seems appropriate today to 
honor the 40th anniversary of the world's first dialysis unit and its 
founders, Drs. Belding Scribner and James Haviland.

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