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Toronto, Ontario, Great White North
Did anyone else catch this or is it only a Toronto issue?


Toronto Star Sep. 7, 12:20 EDT
Rage as hospital suspends life-saving treatment

Hyperbaric chamber's shutdown `dangerous'

Robert Cribb
Staff Reporter

Toronto General Hospital is planning to scrap Ontario's largest hyperbaric unit in three weeks — a "ridiculous, dangerous" move that will risk lives and limbs, warn doctors.

The hospital will be without a hyperbaric chamber for at least 15 months. These life-saving machines are used to treat everything from carbon monoxide poisoning to decompression sickness. And the move, clearing space for a new research facility, has sparked outrage from police, firefighters, past patients and hyperbaric experts.

"It's a stupid decision that will put people's lives at risk," says Bill Roman, president of the Canadian Council on Clinical Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy. "It's indefensible. It's like a fire hall chief saying, `We're renovating our fire hall, so please don't call for two years.'"

Toronto General has the only hospital-based hyperbaric unit in the Toronto area, and the only one in the province capable of managing mass carbon monoxide poisonings, since it can treat 10 patients at once.

Though it's slated to close Sept. 30, fire and police officials say they were not consulted and are only now learning of the shutdown.

The hospital won't open its new unit until January, 2004.

Janet Beeb, chief operating officer of the Toronto General Hospital, insists patient care will not suffer from the closing since those in need of hyperbaric treatment will be transferred to Hamilton's unit. "Hamilton has an excellent program."

But doctors and patients say Hamilton's unit, which can treat only two patients at a time, is unequipped to handle Toronto's needs.

Doctors at Toronto General, forbidden from speaking on the record, have grave concerns.

"It's a ridiculous, dangerous decision," said one. "What they're going to do will kill and maim people."

Ellye Pryce hopes she's not one of them. The 47-year-old, who underwent about 30 hyperbaric treatments earlier this year, before and after a surgery, says they triggered "remarkable" healing that helped save her jaw.

She needs yet another operation on Monday. But this time, she is being denied hyperbaric treatment with it.

Uncertain about how well she will recover, Pryce worries she could end up without an upper jaw.

"I won't be able to eat, open and close my jaw properly or even speak. My nose will have nothing to sit on, my sinuses will cave in," she says. "I'm nervous. For some reason, Toronto hospital has seen fit to close the unit. I think it's a travesty."

Tom Smythe says he's alive today partly because of hyperbaric treatment.

Two years ago, he was struggling with the aftermath of aggressive radiation treatment for cancer.

When an incision on the side of his neck wouldn't heal, the 56-year-old grandson of hockey legend Conn Smythe had hyperbaric treatment over the course of several weeks.

"All of a sudden it healed," he says. "It contributed a great deal towards saving my life.

``I think (the closure of the unit for 15 months) is outrageous. It helps so many people — so many people's lives are saved by it."

The Toronto chamber is used in about 1,600 treatments a year for emergency and elective surgery patients, injured firefighters, police officers and divers.

Toronto's fire department received written notice of the shutdown only yesterday, said Deputy Chief William A. Stewart.

"It does upset us. They're letting us know at the point where the chamber is going to be shut down in 25 days.... It's not appropriate that this chamber should be closed in this manner without an alternative for the citizens of Toronto."

Police divers are also frustrated with hospital officials.

"To say the least, they've been pretty evasive about it," said Angus Armstrong, team leader with the underwater search and recovery team. "We're extremely upset about it. We know almost nothing about what they're doing.

``Our impression is they don't want to continue this because it's not a big money maker for them."

Dr. Jim Young, the province's commissioner of public security, says he's also vague on the details of the impending shutdown.

Health ministry spokesperson Ian Robertson said the decision is the hospital's, adding that the ministry hasn't been informed of any problems.

But in a December letter to Toronto General, the director of Hamilton Health Sciences' hyperbaric unit, Dr. Brian P. Egier, wrote that Toronto's unit "cannot simply be shut down for such an extended period of time."

"It is a simple reality that we are unlikely to be able to accommodate on any regular basis more elective cases than we are currently dealing with," he wrote in the letter, obtained by The Star.

"We will be putting patients at risk of significant morbidity and even loss of limbs," he wrote.

"I cannot believe for a moment that a construction schedule cannot be planned so as to minimize the down time of the hyperbaric unit to a matter of days to weeks, rather than several months."

Speaking through his secretary, Egier offered no comment on the letter yesterday.

Beeb, asked about the letter, said it was based on "misinformation," adding that Toronto officials were working to address the issue.

While there are private hyperbaric facilities in Toronto, experts say many are not certified or operated by people with the proper expertise.

Toronto General's new $1.5 million chamber, on order from an Australian manufacturer, is a new model not produced before, which doctors worry could be prone to bugs.

But Beeb said the model is "the very latest in the market in Australia.... We've selected it because we do think the kinks are worked out."


... and then what do we do about it :confused:
 
I heard it was Jan 2003.. but my information was 3rd hand.

I supose we could write the hospital and/or your parlement. Getting it stoped with less than a month of time? Bura-crazy dousn't work that fast. :confused:
 
Beaurocratic BS..........I would quite imagine that if the idiot making this decision had need of the facilities , it wouldn't be shutting down until the new one was up and running......................................
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/swift/

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