Amid pandemic, don't forget dialysis patients

The world is facing an escalating pandemic unlike anything we’ve seen in our lifetimes. Hospitals from Elmhurst, New York, to Albany, Georgia, are overflowing with coronavirus patients desperately gasping for breath, while the death rate soars in Italy, Spain, and other countries.

But the threats to health go far beyond the direct victims of the virus. Heart disease patients are having life-saving procedures postponed or canceled, while those injured in crashes face critical shortages of hospital beds and intensive care rooms. And perhaps no single group of Americans is larger or more dangerously at risk than the 500,000 people in the United States who depend on a treatment called dialysis.