THE National Kidney Foundation (NKF) will add a $1.6 million bill to its annual spending to help two groups of its needy patients who have been slipping through the cracks.

The country's largest charity's chairman, Mr Gerard Ee, announced on Sunday that $584,000 will be used to pay for all the blood tests of its over 2,000 patients. This works out to about $300 savings a year for patients who undergo 10 blood tests a year.

Also, 60 dialysis patients with other medical conditions will be given $1 million worth of subsidies by the NKF to get treatment in private dialysis centres.

The NKF centres are run by nurses and are not licensed to treat patients with more than one medical condition, in case complications develop while they are undergoing dialysis.

Previously, these patients would not be eligible for NKF subsidy. However, under the new scheme which started last month, patients with more than one medical condition who pass the means test set by the charity will receive about $2,000 to subsidise their dialysis fees in private treatment centres.

Speaking at the official opening of the Pei Hwa Foundation-NKF dialysis centre in Ang Mo Kio Avenue 3, Mr Ee said NKF has routinely had to turn people away because they are not licensed to treat them.

'These are poor people who slip through the net. They come to us seeking help and through no fault of theirs, we have to turn them away and they go away with no help,' he said.

'So we say, this cannot be right. Therefore, we have introduced this new portable subsidy.'

Mr Ee said the two new subsidies are the charity's way of ensuring that the needy 'do not slip through the gaps'.

Read the full report in Monday's edition of The Straits Times.