By Aila Boyd aboyd@ourvalley.org
Davita Kidney Care held a ribbon-cutting ceremony and open house last Tuesday at its Daleville location.
The facility took roughly a year and a half to complete and opened last November. Currently, 18 patients are being served by its staff.
According to Brittany Elmore, facility administrator, the idea to open the facility came from an observation that there was a need for such a facility in the community. She explained that before November, area residents who needed dialysis treatment had to travel and wait for treatment, something that Davita didn’t think should be happening.
“Our goal is to give patients the best treatment possible,” she said. “We do that by offering many different options.”
Home dialysis options include: peritoneal dialysis, a needle-free treatment that is most similar to natural kidney function, and home hemodialysis, a machine with a filter that removes fluid and waste from the blood.
In-center dialysis options include: in-center hemodialysis, a three times per week treatment administered on-site, and in-center nocturnal hemodialysis, a treatment administered on-site over the course of three nights for patients who have daytime obligations.
Jodi Groth, clinical coordinator and Fincastle resident, said, “Our patients are my favorite thing about working here. It’s so nice getting to know them; they have such a diverse outlook on life.”
Groth, originally from Michigan, started working for Davita in June of 2018.
She explained that when she first started working in the field of dialysis treatment, she didn’t know whether or not it would be the right fit for her.
“People say that you’ll either love it or hate it,” she said. “I love it.”
Kenneth Crawford of Troutville is one of her patients. Before being able to receive his treatment at the Daleville location, he was having to travel 30 minutes out of the county multiple times a week.
Kathy Crawford, who takes Kenneth to his treatments, said that “it’s awful that he has to do dialysis, but he absolutely loves it here.”
She went on to note that the staff is kind and “treats him like family.”
Davita Kidney Care is based in Denver, Colo. It has 1.7 million patients nationwide and over 70,000 employees.
Elmore noted that the company is “known for its values and wanting to be the company of choice.”
Other Davita locations throughout the state include: Petersburg, Emporia, Fairfax, Richmond, Chesapeake, Woodbridge, Manassas, Springfield, Sterling, Alexandria, Norfolk, Virginia Beach, Newport News, Hopewell, Portsmouth, Front Royal, Winchester, Herndon, Suffolk, Williamsburg, Stafford, Gainesville, Midlothian, Hampton, Charlottesville, Mechanicsville, Radford, Vienna, Amelia Court House, Chester, Staunton, Arlington, Covington, Culpepper, Harrisonburg, Lexington, Martinsville, Leesburg, Fredericksburg, Pearisburg, West Point, Marion, Lynchburg, Lorton, Dale City, Franklin, Annandale, North Chesterfield, Chantilly, Salem, and Chatham.
