Hyperbaric Chamber to Offer Limited Service Until June

Bermuda Hospitals Board today announces that its hyperbaric chamber will be offering a limited, emergency-only service for about 8 weeks, starting today, Friday 27 April. The temporary reduction in service is to ensure a safe number of qualified staff is available. The hyperbaric chamber is used in the treatment of decompression diving accidents and can be part of a treatment plan for some wound care patients.

Dr Edward Schultz, Chief of Emergency and Hyperbaric Medicine, comments: “Our primary concern is always patient and staff safety, and we have to have a safe number of qualified, on-site staff to run the hyperbaric service. We have about eight diving accidents per year and two physicians in the community, who have the required hyperbaric qualification, have generously agreed to provide emergency support to our internal staff so that we can keep this emergency treatment available. Although we cannot run the hyperbaric chamber service full time for routine wound care treatments, there are alternative treatments for these patients and our wound care nursing service will continue as before.”

About 50 patients use the Hyperbaric Chamber every year. Treatments can assist in the healing of certain surgical and other types of wounds, for example, diabetic ulcers.

Dr Schultz finishes: “We have a long term plan to establish a qualified, experienced, Bermudian hyperbaric technician team to prevent service interruptions due to staffing. In the meantime, we are in the process of arranging for experienced locums to supplement our internal team, and we expect to be able to offer the full service by the end of June.”

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