Mel, I don’t have any medical education but our nocturnal program started out insisting everyone have a catheter for safety reasons. They have switched to the fistula first because of catheter infections. I was quite lucky in that dad’s catheter was good for 5 years. However, it did get infected and we are switching to a fistula. I would prefer to use a catheter it does have advantages. No bleeding to stop. Easy connect. and yes I think they are safer but I think it’s more important to reduce the chance of infection as much as one can. I do agree with you though no one should be afraid of using a catheter. I think if my options were graft or catheter, I’d take catheter.