Safe? Diving in Ontario

[diveforthedeep]

CCCHOT (Canadian Council on Clinical Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy) wants to alert all divers in Ontario, Canada that the situation with hyperbaric chambers has changed again for the worse.

Toronto General Hospital has quietly decided not to accept critical care cases for hyperbaric medicine. There has been no public announcement or notification given to DAN or other diving groups. This leaves only one critical care bed available for injured divers in need of hyperbaric treatment and that is in Hamilton. The Hamilton hospital is not always fully staffed 24/7/365.

The Toronto General Hospital has the only 6ATA capable chamber available in the area (including USA) and was able to handle someone on a stretcher, with staff going inside the chamber to look after serious DCS or AGE injured divers.

You may wish to consider purchasing DAN insurance now before diving in Ontario. This may expedite transfer to Detroit or Buffalo hospitals, if you have a serious dive accident and need hyperbaric treatment.

If this situation concerns you, please call Tom Clossons of Toronto General Hospital at 416 340 5224, or call your MPP. The Minister of Health, George Smitherman is at 416-972-7683 and gsmitherman.mpp@liberal.ola.org

For more info, please call William Roman 416 977 1300 of CCCHOT.

 

[d33ps1x]

Dealt with...

 

[StingRob]

Definitely calls for some action.. I'll give them a call.

 

[Dive Source]

I have called everyone listed but have had to leave messages at this time.

This is of grave concern to me both as a diver and an instructor, if this is indeed the case and I would like to offer my assitance in whatever way is needed.

As Site Admin for www.scubashops.net I would be happy to contact all of our Ontario Member diveshops immediately to alert them to this change and if needed start a groundswell effort to correct what appears right now as a potentially dangerous and life threatening situation.

You can reach me directly by phone at 905-668-8566 and by email at scuba@divesource.com

Sincerly concerned

 

[wetbehindtheear]

...The Minister of Health, George Smitherman is at 416-972-7683...

That phone number is for his constituency office. They will refer you to the Ministry of Health at 416-327-4300 (Dennis Murphy is the assistant in that area). You may have more luck getting a response to an email.

No reply yet to my messages left for Tom Clossons and Dennis Murphy. Lets keep track on here of the calls made to these people.

 

[pufferfish]

CCCHOT (Canadian Council on Clinical Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy) wants to alert all divers in Ontario, Canada that the situation with hyperbaric chambers has changed again for the worse.

Toronto General Hospital has quietly decided not to accept critical care cases for hyperbaric medicine. There has been no public announcement or notification given to DAN or other diving groups. This leaves only one critical care bed available for injured divers in need of hyperbaric treatment and that is in Hamilton. The Hamilton hospital is not always fully staffed 24/7/365.

If they are closing the chamber to all critical cases I assume this would include to cases of severe carbon monoxide poisoning as well. While this is a bad day for the dive community we are small in numbers. I imagine our local firemen and the general public would be very concerned if they knew the nearest treatment chamber for severe CO poisoning would require a ride to Hamilton, Ottawa or across the border.

With Type 2 DCS 'time is brain' so any treatment delays may affect the diver and his family for many years to come especially if Hamilton is closed or occupied and one has to be transported across the border or up to Ottawa.

Will start making some calls today but I would think the GTA firemen's union would be far more successful in raising a little hell.

 

[StingRob]

I called Tom Clossons and Dennis Murphy nobody answered, no reply yet to my messages. I also called few minutes ago the cabinet of Mr. George Smitherman and I've been directed to the Ministry Office. From there.. directed to client services… left a message there too.
No replies to my messages yet.


Safe Diving

 

[d33ps1x]

Dealt with...

 

[wetbehindtheear]

I got a call back from Dennis Murphy of client services at the MOH (his direct # is 416-327-4343). He said he would look into this as he isn't the person who looks after the Toronto hospitals and would have someone get back to me likely next week.

 

[advtech]

CCCHOT (Canadian Council on Clinical Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy) wants to alert all divers in Ontario, Canada that the situation with hyperbaric chambers has changed again for the worse.

Toronto General Hospital has quietly decided not to accept critical care cases for hyperbaric medicine. There has been no public announcement or notification given to DAN or other diving groups. This leaves only one critical care bed available for injured divers in need of hyperbaric treatment and that is in Hamilton. The Hamilton hospital is not always fully staffed 24/7/365.

The Toronto General Hospital has the only 6ATA capable chamber available in the area (including USA) and was able to handle someone on a stretcher, with staff going inside the chamber to look after serious DCS or AGE injured divers.

You may wish to consider purchasing DAN insurance now before diving in Ontario. This may expedite transfer to Detroit or Buffalo hospitals, if you have a serious dive accident and need hyperbaric treatment.

If this situation concerns you, please call Tom Clossons of Toronto General Hospital at 416 340 5224, or call your MPP. The Minister of Health, George Smitherman is at 416-972-7683 and gsmitherman.mpp@liberal.ola.org

For more info, please call William Roman 416 977 1300 of CCCHOT.

Are we sure this is new news! About a year ago, the chamber was closed when the building was sold. The hospilal was pressured into openning a smaller temporary chamber by the local police and fire departments until the new chamber was installed. Last I read, a new 1.5 million dollar chamber had been purchased from an Austrailian manufacture that was supposed to be up and running sometime this year.

The hospilals website (http://www.ocipmh.org/programs/hyperbaric/professional_information.asp) still lists the treatments they conduct. I tried the Canadian Council on Clinical Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy website (www.ccchot.org) but it comes up as unavailable.