March 12th is World Kidney Day

According to the World Kidney Day website, “Kidney disease is a non-communicable disease (NCD) and currently affects around 850 million people worldwide. One in ten adults has chronic kidney disease (CKD). The global burden of CKD is increasing and is projected to become the 5th most common cause of years of life lost globally by 2040.

“Chronic kidney disease is a major cause of catastrophic health expenditure. The costs of dialysis and transplantation consume 2–3% of the annual healthcare budget in high-income countries; spent on less than 0.03% of the total population of these countries. In low-income and middle-income countries, most people with kidney failure have insufficient access to life-saving dialysis and kidney transplantation.”

Here's where you can learn more: https://www.worldkidneyday.org/2020-campaign/2020-wkd-theme/

I am grateful for the awareness that World Kidney Day is bringing to the world. My grandmother died at the age of 49 of kidney complications. She was one of the first people in the US to be on a home dialysis machine and was later also removed from that machine so it could be given to a man. This was in the late 1960s. We’ve come a long way since then, thank goodness!

In the workplace, we don’t always know what employees are dealing with from a health perspective. And with HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) regulations, we’re not necessarily privy to that information. However, we do need to be mindful, caring, and understanding of those people we’re around every day. By creating a caring culture, a side benefit is an increase in #EmployeeEngagement.