The nephrologist says "you could consider home dialysis" and the family goes home with a phrase and no map. There are three ways a person with kidney failure is dialysed in Bangalore: haemodialysis at a centre, haemodialysis at home, and peritoneal dialysis (CAPD) at home. This guide sets out who supplies what, what each option needs from the house and the week, and where the trade-offs sit, so the next conversation with the nephrologist is about your patient rather than about definitions.
The three options
Centre haemodialysis is what most patients in Bangalore are on. The patient travels to a hospital unit or a standalone centre three times a week, is connected through an AV fistula or a catheter, and is dialysed for three to four hours by the centre's technicians under a nephrologist. The family's job is transport, the days between, and the hours after each session.
Home haemodialysis is the same treatment moved into a room in the house. A dialysis provider installs a machine and a reverse osmosis (RO) water unit, supplies the consumables, sends a technician and keeps a nephrologist in charge. Sessions run three to four hours three times a week, or shorter and more often, or overnight, as prescribed. Every home programme requires a trained care partner in the room for the whole session.
CAPD is a different treatment with no machine. A soft catheter is placed permanently in the abdomen, and dialysis fluid is run in, left to dwell, and drained out. Most programmes use three or four exchanges a day, each taking thirty to forty minutes, done by the patient or a care partner. Automated peritoneal dialysis (APD) runs the exchanges on a cycler overnight for eight to ten hours instead.
What the home needs
For home haemodialysis the provider assesses the house first. Expect to need a clean room with space for the machine and the RO unit, a water connection and a drain, plumbing and electrical work, a power backup that can carry the machine through a cut, a phone line or reliable mobile signal to reach the unit, and dry storage for a month of consumables. Flats can qualify; water and power decide it more than floor area.
For CAPD the needs are smaller but daily: a room where the door can be shut and the fan and air conditioner switched off, a wiped table, a hook for the bag, and a hand-wash within reach. A month of fluid arrives in dozens of cartons and needs a clean, dry cupboard away from the kitchen and bathroom. No plumbing, no machine, no technician.
For the centre the home needs nothing except transport and someone to watch the patient after each session.
Who provides what
In home haemodialysis the provider brings the machine, the RO plant, the plumbing and electrical work, the consumables, the technician and the nephrologist's supervision. Several operate in Bangalore, some hospital-run and some standalone chains. The family provides the room, the power backup and the care partner, who can be a family member trained by the provider or a nurse trained on the patient by the provider's unit. EzyHelpers supplies that nurse through its home haemodialysis care-partner service; it does not supply the machine.
In CAPD the hospital's PD unit inserts the catheter, trains the patient or care partner, prescribes the bag strengths and number of exchanges, and arranges the monthly supply. The family does the exchanges, or a nurse does or supervises them under the unit's written protocol, which is what EzyHelpers' CAPD nursing support covers. The fluid still comes on the unit's prescription.
At the centre, the centre does everything clinical. The family arranges transport, escort and the care after each session.
The time cost per week
Centre dialysis costs the family the most hours. A session is three to four hours, and in Bangalore traffic the trip each way is often an hour or more, plus waiting. Three sessions come to around twenty hours of the patient's week and, for a working son or daughter who escorts, three afternoons of leave every week. That is usually why families start asking about home options.
Home haemodialysis removes the travel but ties the care partner to the chair for the full session, plus set-up, clean-up and ten to fifteen minutes of needle-site pressure afterwards. Nocturnal dialysis frees the day but means someone stays awake beside the machine all night.
CAPD spreads the time across every day. Four exchanges of thirty to forty minutes is roughly two to two and a half hours a day, seven days a week. APD frees the daytime but still needs a sterile connection at bedtime and a disconnection each morning.
Infection and safety trade-offs
CAPD's main risk is peritonitis. It comes from a break in sterile technique and shows as cloudy drained fluid, abdominal pain and fever; the exit site can also become infected. Both are prevented by technique, which is why the PD unit trains hard and why families with an elderly or unsteady patient bring in a nurse for the exchanges.
Home haemodialysis's risks happen during the session: a needle that moves or comes out, bleeding, blood pressure dropping as fluid is removed, cramps, and alarms that need a trained response. This is why every provider requires a care partner and trains them on a written plan for that patient.
The centre carries the opposite profile: staff on hand for events during the session, but a shared room three times a week, which is why some nephrologists suggest home dialysis for patients whose immunity is low.
Money, in one section
Bangalore hospital and dialysis-chain price guides updated in 2025 and 2026 put a haemodialysis session at ₹750 to ₹5,000 depending on the centre, average roughly ₹2,300 to ₹2,900: government and district hospitals ₹500 to ₹1,500 and free for BPL card holders under the Pradhan Mantri National Dialysis Programme, standalone centres ₹1,500 to ₹2,500, private corporate hospitals ₹1,500 to ₹3,500. At two to three sessions a week that is ₹24,000 to ₹50,000 a month before medicines and tests.
The same guides put CAPD consumables at ₹20,000 to ₹40,000 a month, most families at ₹25,000 to ₹35,000, automated PD at up to about ₹1,00,000 a month, and catheter insertion in a private hospital at a one-time ₹1,00,000 to ₹2,50,000. Ayushman Bharat-Arogya Karnataka has been extended to peritoneal dialysis, and in September 2025 the Karnataka government ordered a pilot of free peritoneal dialysis at home for 350 patients identified by district nephrologists, about ten per district. Ask the nephrologist whether the patient qualifies.
Home haemodialysis programmes are quoted per session or per month by the provider, with no public list price. Insurance caps are reached faster by recurring dialysis than by one-off surgery, so read the per-year limit before choosing on price.
Caregiving is the other line. The EzyHelpers home nursing cost guide lists a nurse 12-hour shift at ₹1,200 to ₹1,800 and a live-in attendant at ₹24,000 to ₹34,000 a month, and the dialysis care cost guide works those into monthly examples for each option.
Who is not a candidate
Home haemodialysis is ruled out for a patient whose blood pressure is unstable on dialysis, a home without power backup or a clean room, a household with nobody to be the care partner at every session, and any patient whose unit will not write a home plan. CAPD is ruled out by some abdominal conditions and previous surgeries, which the surgeon assesses before placing a catheter, and is a poor fit for poor eyesight or shaky hands unless someone else does the exchanges. The centre is the option for everyone else, and the fallback every home programme returns a patient to.
How to decide, with the nephrologist
Go with four questions. What does the nephrologist recommend on clinical grounds, given the heart, the access and any remaining kidney function? Which providers or PD units do they work with? Who in the family will realistically be the care partner for a year, and if nobody, will the family pay for a nurse? And what is the plan if home dialysis does not work out?
Where EzyHelpers fits
EzyHelpers does not perform haemodialysis, does not own or bring a machine, does not insert catheters and does not supply fluid. What it supplies is the person: a nurse or attendant for a centre patient who escorts and watches the hours after a session, a care-partner nurse trained on the patient for home haemodialysis, and a nurse who performs or supervises CAPD exchanges under the PD unit's protocol. Nurse visits can be booked for the next day, nurse shifts need 48 hours' notice, and attendant placements take three to seven days.
Whichever option the family settles on, the days between sessions are the same job, and the kidney and dialysis care page covers that side.