Nashville’s Public Housing Agency Opens Its First Dialysis Clinic For Residents

Nashville’s public housing agency is getting into health care.

The Metropolitan Development and Housing Agency opened a dialysis clinic last month on one of its properties, in a step toward making a burdensome treatment more convenient.  

MDHA estimates that about 200 public housing residents in Nashville are on dialysis. Emilio Hughes, who lives in the John Henry Hale Apartments, is one of them. In 2010, he was diagnosed with end-stage renal disease, meaning his kidneys don’t function and need dialysis to filter his blood.

Three days a week, he sits in a chair with a needle in his arm for four hours, plus time for transportation to the clinic, setup and recovery.

“The disease pretty much robs you of three days out of your week,” he says. “It’s a big commitment, but what are the options? You can do it, or you can not do it and die.”

For some residents, the time commitment and transportation hassle is even higher: MDHA’s executive director stopped by the Parthenon Towers one morning in 2014 and saw about 10 residents boarding a bus for a clinic in Murfreesboro. They told him they wouldn’t be back until the evening.

So MDHA came up with the idea to partner with Sanderling Renal Services, a private company, to open a clinic at the Preston Taylor Homes in North Nashville. The center also doubles as a job training center — all of the technicians are public housing residents.

The location is obviously easier on patients who live nearby, but Jerome Tannenbaum, the head of the clinic, says the next goal is eliminate transportation altogether.

“What we’re doing is we’re training technicians to be able to put the machine into the patient’s home and treat them at home,” he says.

This setup would give patients like Emilio Hughes back several hours a week. “That is the type of convenience that you just can’t beat,” he says.

Even more comforting, Hughes says, is to know that his landlords are also invested in his health.