Managing work and kidney disease
Work, Wellness, and
Kidney Disease
Working with kidney disease can come with its own range of benefits and challenges.
Staying in touch with colleagues, using your skills and making a valued contribution at the workplace is all part of living a full life.
Whether you’re thinking about discussing your work commitments with your employer. Or you need to adjust your hours or role in line with your treatment. You’ll find employers, in most cases are willing to help. Your doctor can even give you a letter of support to show them.
Work And
Your Rights Video
Solicitor Claire Brown, from employment lawyers KHQ talks about how and when to talk to your employer about having kidney disease.
Play: To watch the video, click the play button.
Subtitles: If you need subtitles, click the subtitle icon on the right-hand side at the bottom of the screen.
Talking to Work
It is important to note that you are under no obligation to disclose your condition to your employer. Your employer is not legally allowed to let you go you if you become temporarily ill.
Your workplace should offer reasonable adjustments if you fall ill. You should tell them changes are needed to help you work safely and productively.
These changes could be:
- Working fewer hours
- Adjusting your schedule around dialysis
- Or even exploring treatments like home dialysis that fit better with work
Your doctor can help by writing a letter to support any changes needed.
Talking to them about kidney disease can also reduce any misleading ideas they have and increase understanding.
Your healthcare team can assist you with educational information for your workplace that will help explain kidney disease and its treatment.
For more information on if and when to talk to your employer visit
Talking to your employer about illness | healthdirect
Benefits of staying employed
It’s important to keep working if possible, as the benefits of contact with colleagues, contributing something valued, and utilising a skill you have is all part of living a full life.
It may be necessary to modify your job in some way (e.g. working fewer hours if on dialysis) but your doctor can help by writing letters to support any changes that may be needed. Whether or not you can do the same job will depend on the work involved and your health – keep your employer fully informed so they can help you find a solution.
Some ideas may be doing home haemodialysis, changing work hours to fit your treatment schedule or doing PD overnight.
If this is something you wish to do, discuss with your healthcare team to see what might be possible to change or adapt in terms of your treatment.
Managing your time and energy
Once you’re balancing work and dialysis, be sure to keep your manager informed of your condition as much as you can.
You may find some days are tiresome; dialysis is time-consuming and can often leave you feeling flat.
To help, some things you can consider include:
- Doing home haemodialysis in the comfort of your own surroundings
- Changing your work hours or times to fit with your haemodialysis schedule
- Doing peritoneal dialysis bag changes in a suitable location at work, or using a machine to do dialysis overnight
- Easing slowly back into work after a transplant operation so that you have plenty of time to recover and adjust to the anti-rejection medications.
