You have visited Portugal several times. What makes you keep choosing Portugal as a holiday destination?
I've been a dialysis patient for 17 years now. I started travelling around 10 years ago, after my transplantation. I've travelled all around Europe, but I never went to Portugal until 3 years ago. But in the last three years, I've been to Portugal four times. Three times to different Diaverum centres in Lisbon, and once to Diavetum center in Porto.
The reason I keep coming back to Portugal is that my work takes me there, and because it's really easy to travel with dialysis in Portugal.I just email Marta Olim and ask her to help me. Marta is rally kind and helpful and she takes care of everything I need to get dialysis where I need it in Portugal.
How would you describe your experience at the Estoril Clinic? What do you particularly appreciate about the clinic and its facilities?
My last visit to Portugal was to Carcavelos near Lisbon. I was there for a Patient Innovation Boot Camp at Nova business school. The Estoril Clinic was the nearest one, so that's where I went.
When I arrived at the clinic, everything was really easy. The secretarie welcomed me in good English and showed me where to go. The dialysis session was perfect, I didn't have any troubles at all. I even get two sandwiches, which is great, better than in Spain with just coffee and cookies. Everything was nice. I found the staff very kind, and the nurses spoke English.
I even made a quick video patient review about the clinic, you can check it here.
If I come back and if I would stay somewhere near, I would of course like to return to the Estoril Clinic.
How would you describe the team at the Estoril Clinic and the way they welcome and support you during your treatments?
The team is really supportive. All of them spoke English well, and you could communicate with them easily. Before we started dialysis they explained everything to me, about the machine, and it was a really warm welcome. If I needed the TV, I got a remote, and I think I had my own headphones with me to listen to it.
It was a nice atmosphere. I remember one nurse with who we had a really good conversation about life in Portugal.
When you arrive at the clinic for your treatment, do you feel like a visiting patient, or do you already feel, in some way, part of the clinic?
Every time I arrive at the clinic, I feel like a visiting patient because I'm a foreigner, and I speak English while everybody else speaks Portuguese (in this case), so of course you're a little bit confused at first.
But at this Estoril clinic, the first thing that happens when you arrive is you see the secretary, and she speaks English. She came out from her office and said, "Hello, you're the new guy, just come here to the waiting room and wait a little bit, and a nurse will come to pick you up." For me, that was a really good welcome to the clinic.
After that, of course, you have to get to know the staff, but by the last third dialysis, we were already friends. When I was leaving, I was the last one to finish dialysis, I ended up chatting with the nurses at the front door while I was waiting for my transport and they were going home.
For someone receiving haemodialysis, travelling requires planning and, above all, confidence. Does the support you receive before and during your stay in Portugal help you feel safe and reassured? In what way?
Like I said before, in Portugal I always just contact Marta Olim and arrange my dialysis through her at the Diaverum center. She's really nice, and her support means a lot to me. I'm planning to bring a group of Slovenian patients to Portugal too, and Marta and I are already planning this trip for next year.
The support in Portugal from Marta was something special. I wasn't used to that in other centers around Europe. This was the first time I experienced this kind of support, from Marta in Portugal, but now I'm also collaborating with other coordinators in Spain and Italy. I think this system is one of the best I've seen, because it's easy for us patients. We just contact one person in the country, and that person can accommodate our dialysis needs near where we're staying.
Sometimes, if you don't have this kind of support, you have to email different clinics, and you get some responses or not, and maybe you have to call around. I think this is one of the best systems for holiday travel with dialysis.
Is there anything you find particularly special or different about the way you are supported while receiving your treatments in Portugal?
For me, it was special. The support from Marta, getting the dialysis arranged, getting all the information... of course, at the Diaverum center all the documentation is mostly the same for all countries, but it's really important that you can trust that the dialysis will be waiting for you, and that communication is fast, responsive.
In a dialysis center, it's good to have a doctor who speaks English, at least for the first time, to decide about all the small details of the treatment. And of course, if the nurses speak English, that helps too. For me, it was special because they placed me in the room with a nurse who spoke English. That was planned, they made sure I was with a nurse who could communicate with me, and that really stood out in this center.
When you are on holiday, how important is it for you to feel that dialysis does not define or limit your entire travel experience?
I'm travelling, and not just for holidays, but also for business, and sometimes I need my dialysis scheduled to fit my needs, sometimes in the morning, sometimes in the evening. For me that's really important, that you have options, and you can negotiate when you need your dialysis, especially if you have important meetings. If you just fly to a country for one meeting, then you need to adjust the dialysis around that event, plane tickets, transportation....
Like I said, it's important that there's an option to choose, and that dialysis center can adjust to you. Sometimes that's possible, sometimes I understand it's not, it depends on the team, and on how many patients are at the dialysis center. But for now, I can mostly “negotiate” with the centers. In this instance in Estoril clinic, I needed to have one session in the morning around a meeting and another in the evening, and we together “negotiated” a little bit to make it work.
After several visits and treatments in Portugal, is there a particular moment, gesture or aspect of the team’s care that has stayed with you?
Of course, It is really nice story. One old lady had her 90th birthday when I was at Estoril clinic, and she was in my room. The stuff brought her a cake and celebrated with her, singing happy birthday, and then they shared the cake with the other patients around. That's something you don't see everywhere.
If another person receiving haemodialysis told you they would love to travel to Portugal but were worried about having their treatments away from home, what would you say to them?
For me, it's really easy. If the dialysis center is open, that means their patients are doing fine. And if local patients are surviving dialysis at that center, then you'll survive dialysis there too, for one, two, or three treatments. That's no problem.
Even if you're used to longer dialysis at home, like five hours, it doesn't matter, because while five hours might be better for you in the long run, if you have four hours at another dialysis center, you'll survive your holiday just fine. All the nurses know how to cannulate the AV fistula, because again, if other patients are being treated there and are alive and well, you have nothing to worry about.
It's simple, even if you don't speak the language, they have all the information about you, and they have a lot of experience. And even if something goes wrong and you can't communicate that to them, they know what to do to keep you safe.
Would you recommend Portugal and the Estoril Clinic to other people receiving haemodialysis? Why?
Would I recommend it? Of course, absolutely. I feel really safe when I'm in Marta's hands. I know that she will take care of me, and that's because I have this trust with her. I'm happy to travel anywhere in Portugal to a Diaverum clinic, it's no problem at all. Whether I go to a clinic in the middle of Lisbon, outside Lisbon, or in Porto, my experience with the Diaverum clinics has always been good.
I have to say every clinic is different, and the Estoril Clinic is one of the newest and nicest, but it doesn't matter to me where I go, as long as I have the opportunity to have my dialysis at the time and near the place I need to be.
After so many visits, what does it mean to you today to return to Portugal and to the Estoril Clinic?
Returning to Portugal is no problem for me. I know I'll get my dialysis sorted, I just have to take care of flights, hotels, and transportation to the clinic. I also have a lot of new Portuguese friends around the country, and I'm looking forward to visiting them as soon as possible.
For me, Portugal is one country I can check off, a free country for me to travel with dialysis. Everything is already in place, it's just a few calls and emails away.
You mentioned that you are traveling for work. What kind of work are you doing?
Yes, I travel for work a lot. It's hard to explain fully, but mostly I want to make my life better as a dialysis patient. I invented a protection for AV fistulas Fistula Protect, and I also modified bottles so dialysis patients can drink less (Aqualis_health). But what I really like to do is travel, and help other patients travel too.
That's why I decided to start Dialysis Adventures, where I began by helping Slovenian patients travel around Europe. But my vision is to create a community of patients all over Europe and the world, travelling together, going somewhere as a group, meeting people, for example a couple, patient and spouse or caregiver, from Spain, from Sweden, from Slovenia, and from Portugal, all going together to Greece on holiday, with organized dialysis, organized travel, hotels and transportation.
That's how we can connect with each other as patients and start sharing our stories, what's better, what's worse, in different countries. That's how we can grow. And in the end, we have international friends, so whenever we want to go somewhere, we know somebody there, and we can just ask, “can I come to your dialysis unit?” These local connections help us be more free, even with dialysis treatment.
