Families stepped inside a Midlands dialysis unit to understand the treatment shaping their loved ones’ lives.

Sunday afternoons are rarely a time when dialysis patients and staff gather at the clinic. Sunday, 16 August 2026, however, was different. The B. Braun Wellstone Midlands Renal Care Centre opened its doors for a Family and Friends Day under the theme, “Walk in My Shoes.”

For many families, the dialysis unit is where their loved one disappears to—alone—three times a week. Once there, patients spend around four hours on a machine that does the work their kidneys can no longer manage.

Families know their loved ones attend dialysis, but that is not the same as seeing the unit, meeting the staff or understanding what treatment involves.

They do not see the preparation before a patient is connected to the machine, the hours in the chair, the alarms, the blood pressure checks or the fatigue that can follow. They may also struggle to understand why fluid and diet restrictions matter so much, or why something as simple as an extra drink can have consequences before the next session.

That is why it was so good to see the clinic filled with visitors of all ages, from young children to older relatives. For one afternoon, a clinical space became somewhere families could ask questions and gain insight into a major part of their loved ones’ lives.

Information displays placed around the unit explained parts of the dialysis journey, including the three or four hours spent connected to the machine and why patients can become cold during treatment. Footprints on the floor carried short messages about the realities of dialysis, including one particularly important truth: “I plan my life around dialysis.”

There were activities for younger visitors too, including colouring sheets and a dialysis treasure hunt inviting children to find familiar items around the unit. One sheet, entitled “Teddy Goes to Dialysis,” showed a bear settling into the dialysis chair with a blanket, headphones and a book.

“Walk in My Shoes” was never about expecting full understanding in a single visit. Dialysis is too complex and too personal for that. But it did allow those closest to patients to step briefly into their world.

It also gave visitors a chance to meet staff and see the community that forms within a dialysis unit. Patients arrive as individuals, but over time they become familiar faces in one another’s lives.

There was laughter, conversation and even a raffle. These moments matter too. Dialysis units are places of serious treatment, but also of friendship, humour and shared experience.

For families, the afternoon offered a glimpse behind a door they do not usually pass through. For patients, it was a chance to share a part of life that often remains separate from home.

No one can fully walk in another person’s shoes. But being invited to look, listen and walk alongside them, even briefly, can make a real difference.

Author’s note: Michael McFarland Campbell has received haemodialysis three times a week since December 2018. He attended the Family and Friends Day—and “Teddy Goes to Dialysis” made him laugh because he usually brings a bear of his own to treatment.

Photographs taken during Family and Friends Day at the B. Braun Wellstone Midlands Renal Care Centre on 16 August 2026. Footprint photograph © Andrew McFarland Campbell; all other photographs © Michael McFarland Campbell.