In B. Braun, patient education has an integral role in making sure that the patients afflicted with chronic kidney disease (CKD) not only get the proper quality treatment, but also remain knowledgeable about their disease and how to live a quality life in spite of their condition. The multinational company in the Philippines which manages more than a dozen dialysis centers periodically conducts patient forums and makes sure that new patients are oriented well on living a healthy lifestyle despite CKD.

The pandemic, however, paved a challenge to patient education as the health care provider needed to follow IATF guidelines in following strict protocols on mass gatherings.

Learning never stops though for B. Braun Avitum Philippines and its patients as they started a webinar patient forum series called, “B. Braun Kidney Talks: Pwede Pa Bato?”, the latter Filipino language being a wordplay on the word “Kidney” and associating to the line if it is still allowed.

To start the series, B. Braun started with a topic that is literally below the belt, “Pwede Pa Bato? Sexuality & Intimacy in CKD”. They invited seasoned urologist, Dr. Alvin G. Cabreira and another obstetrician-gynecologist, Dr. Ronaldo Santos to talk about this taboo topic out in the open.

The event was likened to a talk show hosted online rather than the traditional presentation type of webinars in order to create more interest for the patients. It was able to shed light on a lot of dialysis patients who, oftentimes, have a lot of questions on the topic but are too shy to ask their doctors. Topics such as male infertility, pregnancy, and risks of CKD patients, harmful herbal medicines which when left unchecked may cause more harm were some of the discussion points of the doctors in this 45-minute episode of B. Braun Kidney Talks.

The event was a success and it provided an opportunity for dialysis patients to understand the disease more deeply in this aspect and to feel the oneness of the dialysis community that they are not alone in this fight against CKD.

Because of the success of the live webinar, B. Braun promised to make this a quarterly event to tackle more issues and help more patients in getting study-driven answers to their concerns.

The event was aired in Facebook Live last July 4, 2021. In case you missed it, you may still visit and watch the recorded show by clicking here.