Holiday Dialysis: How to Travel and Keep Your Treatment Schedule

Getting holiday dialysis sorted comes down to five steps:

1. Find a centre at your destination. That is what Reni is for. Browse by country and city, or use the search to find centres near where you are staying.

2. Send your inquiry. When you use our inquiry form, we forward your message to the centre, only with your explicit consent. Include your current schedule (days and session times), your prescription details, and your travel dates.

3. Confirm dates, times and what to bring. The centre will come back to you with available slots. Get your sessions confirmed in writing before you do anything else.

4. Gather your paperwork from your home unit. Ask your nephrologist or dialysis nurse for everything the destination centre will need (see the next section). Allow time, as home units can be busy.

5. Travel. With confirmed slots and your documents in order, you can travel with confidence.

Most centres that accept visiting patients ask for the same core set of documents. Gathering these before you leave is one of the most important things you can do:

• A recent letter or summary from your home unit: this should include your dialysis prescription (machine settings, dialysate, access type) and your current schedule.
• Recent blood test results: most centres want results from the past few weeks. Ask your home unit what is recent enough.
• Virology and serology results: hepatitis B, hepatitis C, and HIV status are routinely required. Your home unit will know what to provide.
• A full medication list, including doses and timing.
• Your passport, and a copy is worth having separately.
• EHIC or GHIC: if you have one and it is valid, bring it. It may or may not be relevant depending on the country and centre (see below), but it costs nothing to carry.

Requirements vary from centre to centre, so always confirm the exact list when you first make contact. And ask your home unit early. Gathering these documents can take longer than expected.

Dialysis capacity at popular holiday destinations is finite, and demand peaks in summer. Treat your dialysis arrangement with the same urgency as your flights.

• Summer coastal destinations (Mediterranean Spain, the Canary Islands, the Algarve, southern Italy): aim to contact centres 4–8 weeks before you travel. These are busy periods and slots fill.
• Off-peak travel or less popular destinations: 2–4 weeks is often enough, but earlier is always safer. A centre that has availability today may not when you call back next week.
• The golden rule: have your sessions confirmed in writing before you book your flights. Changing or cancelling flights is expensive and stressful; confirming dialysis first keeps you in control.

The reason capacity tightens is simple: many visiting patients want the same summer weeks, and centres can only accommodate a certain number of extra patients alongside their regular caseload. Calling ahead gives you options.

Destination	When to start planning
European coast in summer (Spain, Portugal, Italy)	4–8 weeks ahead
Off-peak or quieter European destinations	2–4 weeks ahead
UK, for non-UK residents	8–10 weeks ahead
USA or Canada	3–4 months ahead
Caribbean, Australia, or other long-haul	4–6 months ahead
Peak summer weeks (July and August)	Add a few extra weeks to any estimate above

EHIC and GHIC (the European Health Insurance Card and its UK replacement, the Global Health Insurance Card) can cover medically necessary healthcare in public health systems across the EU and EEA. In practice, however, holiday dialysis is very often arranged with private or visitor-friendly units that fall outside the public system, in which case the card does not apply. Whether your card is relevant depends on the country, the specific centre, and your circumstances. Always ask the centre directly, and confirm before you book anything.

Travel insurance is a separate matter. Many standard policies exclude pre-existing conditions, which means dialysis and the equipment or treatment associated with it may not be covered. Specialist insurers do exist who offer cover for patients on dialysis. It is worth searching for these before you travel, and reading any policy carefully. We are not insurance advisors and we cannot recommend specific providers; this is information to research and confirm yourself, ideally before your trip is booked.

The short version: do not assume either card or policy covers you. Ask, read, and confirm.

Reni is a directory. We search for dialysis centres, check their contact details as best we can, and list them in one place so that patients can find them without trawling dozens of local websites in a foreign language.

When you use our inquiry form, we forward your message to the centre, and only after you have explicitly consented to us doing so. We do not book slots, we do not hold your data longer than the inquiry needs, and we never charge a fee.

We are not a healthcare provider or a booking platform. We do not give medical advice, and nothing on this site should be read as a recommendation about your treatment. Your home nephrologist and dialysis team are the right people for those conversations.

If you find a centre we have missed, or if contact details have changed, you can let us know. Keeping the directory accurate is the whole point.