RESUMO
Treatment of children with end-stage kidney disease (ESKD), requiring maintenance dialysis, poses unique challenges. In low- and middle-income countries, lifelong treatment leads to significant stress on the overall family unit. Families face serious financial, social and psychological consequences despite free treatment. This pilot study, utilising primarily quantitative methods, supplemented by two case studies, is set in Sindh Institute of Urology and Transplantation, a tertiary care hospital in Karachi, Pakistan, providing free medical treatment. Fifty-two caretakers of children receiving haemodialysis for more than five years participated in the quantitative arm. Findings reveal that additional financial challenges may send the entire household into financial catastrophe. Social problems include migration from native cities, impact on the education of the sick child along with changes in lives of siblings. One-third of primary caretakers screened positive for anxiety/depression. Healthcare professionals 'practising' in developing countries face considerable ethical dilemmas in their practice when offering “free” paediatric dialysis services knowing the financial and psychological burden imposed on families.