200 dialysis sessions a month sounds encouraging but it also shows how kidney disease can quietly take over a family’s life Lagos says Alimosho General Hospital now performs up to 200 dialysis sessions monthly, with eight functional machines: six for general patients and two reserved for patients with HIV or hepatitis. Sessions can begin around 6am and continue until the last patient is treated. The less obvious implication is that 200 sessions does not mean 200 patients have been treated and moved on. Dialysis for kidney failure is usually repetitive. In-centre haemodialysis commonly happens about three times every week, with each session lasting roughly four hours. So one patient may require around a dozen sessions in a month, depending on their prescribed treatment. That turns kidney failure into more than a hospital problem. For a household, it can mean repeated transport costs, time away from work, someone accompanying the patient, medicines and consumables, and several hours surrendered to treatment every few days. The good news is that Alimosho’s capacity appears to have expanded significantly: a 2024 investigation reported only three working dialysis machines there. But the bigger lesson is this: dialysis capacity should not only be measured by machines or monthly sessions. It should be measured by how many families can consistently access life-sustaining treatment without their finances, jobs and daily lives collapsing around it.