Specialist company to offer dialysis treatment on selected Oceania Cruises sailings

Cruise Dialysis, a specialist travel company helping patients that need haemodialysis, has confirmed it will offer a dialysis unit on board Oceania Marina on selected cruises in 2026 and 2027.

This is in addition to permanent dialysis units the company has already set up on Ambassador Cruise Line vessels, Ambition and Ambience.

A total of 60,000 people in the UK need dialysis treatment which normally require three sessions of up to four hours every week.

Agents can benefit from a referral scheme whereby if they forward a client to Cruise Dialysis, they will receive £50 when that customer books and completes their cruise.

Managing director Lisa Parnell set up the business more than 20 years ago to help arrange accessible cruises for people with disabilities, and over time has shifted into setting up dialysis units on ships and booking voyages for patients.

She said: “When people are given the diagnosis of going on to kidney dialysis, a lot think their days of cruising are at an end.

“They are quite delighted when they find out they can still cruise with dialysis.

“I always say it does take a bit more organisation than a regular holiday, but we do all of that for them and it opens up a world to them that they may have thought was closed with their diagnosis.”

Parnell added the company provides all the equipment and a trained team to support dialysis patients, with a ratio of one nurse for every two patients, which means customers can “go back to their holiday” easily when on their cruise.

She said two sailings on Oceania Marina in May and June will be equipped with a temporary dialysis unit with equipment and five beds, enabling the business to take 10 patients, with two more sailings confirmed for May and June 2027.

Meanwhile, Ambition has a newly refurbished permanent unit with five chairs and capacity for 10 patients on the sailing, and Ambience can take up to 14 patients in its seven-bed unit.

“Patients now have plenty of choice of destination from the Norwegian fjords, Canaries, Iberia, British Isles and Baltic cruises,” she said. “People are delighted and we get an awful lot of repeat business.”

She said: “We hope Oceania Cruises is going to be an ongoing partnership as well [as Ambassador].

“They have been pleased with us this year with our bookings, so they were happy to welcome us on board for next year as well.

Parnell added: “We’re always very open to talking with different cruise lines, but it is down to capacity and the amount of dialysis machines we have and the number of patients we have that can take advantage of the service.”