National Health Stories - Kidney Dilemma

In a series tracing decisive moments in the life of our National Health Service, medical historian Sally Sheard explores how the life-saving invention of the 'artificial kidney' machine in the 1960s came at a cost, bringing moral dilemmas in its wake, for doctors and society as a whole.

As demand for new treatments and devices rose, especially for costly ones like kidney dialysis, doctors were faced with increasingly difficult choices - which patients should they treat?

Producer: Beth Eastwood.

Published on Wednesday, 27th June 2018.

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