A Sittingbourne mum who spends hours in hospital every week for a condition she could die from has criticised plans to scrap a vital form of free treatment.

Sharon Turner is on a waiting list for a kidney and a pancreas after her body rejected a transplant she was given two years ago.

The 39-year-old travels up to four times a week from her home in Murston Road to Canterbury Hospital to receive vital dialysis sessions that each last about three hours.

Miss Turner, who lives with her four-year-old son Charlie, says the major shortage of donors means many people like her are forced to undergo the treatment, which stops them from working and completely dominates their lives.

Her request follows revelations that MPs will vote in February on whether kidney dialysis should remain a prescribed NHS treatment.

The former florist, who had to give up her job as a result of her condition, said: “It’s £350 per session, three to four times a week.

“You don’t have a choice in doing it. If you don’t, you die.

“To think that the treatment could not be there is unbelievable. It is a lot of people’s lives they’re playing with.

“Before I started, I didn’t know how many people were on dialysis.

“It is disgusting they would think about stopping it.”

MP Gordon Henderson, who has previously campaigned for dialysis treatment to be made available in Sittingbourne and Sheppey, said he did not believe the service would ever not be provided on the NHS.

The Tory said: “It is never going to happen.

“If the NHS stops providing dialysis to kidney patients, they will die.”

Mr Henderson said that he would be pushing for home dialysis treatment to be more widely available because the comparatively small number of people in the area needing the kidney care was not enough to warrant a whole unit in a hospital.

The latest NHS figures show there are 135 people in Kent on the list for a kidney transplant, with 11 of those waiting for a joint kidney and pancreas transplant.

Between April 2013 and April 2014, 38 people received a kidney transplant from a deceased person.