A patient with chronic kidney disease: successful entrepreneur

has been a patient of RTS since 1995. When she was only a little girl, she was diagnosed with purpura, a hemorrhagic disorder that affects the blood clotting process in the body, causing the immune system to damage the platelets present in the blood, thereby affecting the kidneys.

At the age of 14, Judith started Peritoneal Dialysis (PD) therapy and her mother was in charge of doing the three daily exchanges; the first one, when she would wake up, just before getting ready for school; the second one, at noon, she was allowed by the school to go home, do the therapy and return to classes; and the last one, at the end of the afternoon.

Since she was young, she was started on a strict diet that restricted her consumption of foods high in phosphorus, potassium and calcium. Despite this, the therapy allowed her to continue with her daily activities, share moments with her family and be the favorite child among her six siblings, who supported her in finishing her studies. In the year 2000, she began her Accounting Assistant certificate program.
 

Complications during her journey

Unfortunately, after nine years of therapy sessions, she contracted peritonitis, so her catheter had to be removed and she was changed to Hemodialysis (HD). Due to this situation, it was difficult for Judith to get a job because all of the companies required her to work full-time, but she needed permission to attend her medical appointments, tests and dialysis sessions.

  At age 27, she started taking care of the elderly and children in an attempt to organize her time so she could be treated, continuing with this until a construction company opened their doors to her three years ago, giving her the opportunity to work as a courier’s assistant with flexible hours so she could continue receiving medical care. Nevertheless, she was never as happy in any of these jobs as she is when she knits and makes rag dolls and crochet dolls, an art that was passed down to her by her grandmother.
 

Natural entrepreneur

Her hand crafts motivated her to create Manos Productivas [Productive Hands] four years ago, a group of renal patients that makes diverse hand crafts and that little by little, have become RTS suppliers for special events.

Judith is now 37 years old, and she has been helping the San Rafael RTS Branch in Bogotá for 23 years. She is one of the clinic's eight first patients. This is why Judith affirms that Baxter and RTS help patients flourish. "They are not only focused on producing medications and services, but more importantly, the patient's well-being and preservation of quality of life is what matters most to them.”