Travel dialysis in India: finish this checklist before you book the ticket

The trips that fall through mostly fall through for one reason: they were planned in the order of an ordinary holiday. Tickets, then accommodation, then — a week before leaving — someone starts phoning dialysis units in the destination city and discovers there is no capacity on the days that now cannot be changed.

Reverse it. The chair is the fixed point of the journey, and everything else is arranged around it.

Step one: count sessions, not days

On a Monday–Wednesday–Friday schedule, a trip that leaves Saturday and returns Thursday is not a five-day trip. It is two missed sessions that have to happen somewhere else. Write out the dates and mark every session that falls inside them, including travel days — an overnight train arriving Monday morning does not create a spare Monday.

Then decide where each of those sessions will happen. If one of them cannot be arranged, that is the trip's real constraint, and it is better known now than in three weeks.

Step two: talk to your own unit before you talk to anyone else

Your own unit is the most underused resource in this process. They will tell you whether the plan is reasonable for you, and they hold nearly everything a destination centre will ask for.

• A dialysis summary or prescription: session length, frequency, dialysate details, dry weight, anticoagulation, and needle or catheter details.
• Your recent lab results, and specifically your hepatitis B, hepatitis C, and HIV serology. Nearly every unit requires current serology before accepting a visiting patient, and “current” often means within the last few months — this is the single most common reason a booking falls through late.
• A letter confirming you are a regular dialysis patient at their unit, and their contact number for the destination unit to call.
• Their view on whether to travel at all right now. If your last few sessions have been difficult, that conversation is the point of this step.

Step three: secure the slot, in writing, on named dates

“We usually have space” is not a booking. What you need is a specific date, a specific shift, and a person's name — and the destination unit will need to know what they are agreeing to.

Ask about cost explicitly, including whether there are charges beyond the session itself. Ask what happens if your train is late and you miss the shift. And get the name of the person you spoke to — a booking attached to a name survives a staff change; a booking attached to nobody does not.

Step four: only now, book the travel

With sessions confirmed, book transport and stay around them rather than the other way round. Two things are worth paying for: staying near the dialysis centre rather than near the attraction, and keeping some slack around a session day so a delayed train does not cost you a slot.

What to carry, and where

Everything in this list goes in the bag that stays with you. Checked luggage goes missing, and none of this is replaceable at short notice.

• All of your medicines, in more than the quantity you need, in original packaging with labels intact — plus a written list of names and doses in case a pharmacy has to substitute.
• Your dialysis summary, prescription, recent labs, and serology reports. Paper copies as well as photographs.
• The destination centre's address, phone number, and your confirmed session dates.
• Your own unit's number and your nephrologist's name.
• The address and number of a hospital with an emergency department near where you are staying, found before you travel rather than during a problem.
• A note stating that you are a dialysis patient, which arm carries your access, and that no cuff or needle goes in that arm.

None of that is live yet — travel dialysis booking opens this Diwali, in November 2026, and this site is where it will be announced. Until then the sequence above is the reliable way to do it by hand.