PALM BEACH, Florida (12 July 2007) -- Local scuba divers will soon be able to breathe a little easier. St. Mary's Medical Center will reopen its hyperbaric oxygen chamber for emergencies - at least for the next several months - with the hope the trauma hospital can get some financial assistance running the money-losing service, Chief Executive Officer David Carbone told The Palm Beach Post Wednesday. The hospital, which has come under fire since discontinuing the lifesaving service June 30, hopes to get state approval to restore the service in time for the lobster mini-season July 25-26. Regulators, however, have 45 days to rule. "As a public health issue, the sooner they open the better," said Dr. Jean Malecki, Palm Beach County health director, reacting to the news. Last week, she scolded St. Mary's for discontinuing the emergency service and asked the Florida Attorney General's Office to investigate. In dropping the service, St. Mary's cited falling patient demand and difficulty recruiting doctors and respiratory therapists to handle emergencies 24 hours a day. But the decision sparked an uproar in the local diving and public health communities because the West Palm Beach facility was the only hospital between Miami and Orlando offering emergency hyperbaric care. "Thanks to Palm Beach County health director Dr. Jean Malecki, the Palm Beach Post and staff writer Phil Galewitz, St. Mary's now understands it's in everyone's best interest to provide the local diving community with emergency hyperbaric treatment," said CDNN Managing Editor Freeman Washington |
|
The treatment is used to relieve divers of a dangerous, though rare, condition called decompression sickness. The most common symptom is joint pain, often referred to as the bends. More serious cases can result in paralysis, brain damage, heart attack and death. Less than a week after St. Mary's ended its emergency service, a man diving off Boca Raton suffered decompression sickness and had to be flown to Mercy Hospital in Miami. The attorney general's office agreed to look into St. Mary's decision because its parent, Dallas-based Tenet Healthcare Corp., agreed to maintain emergency services as part of its 2001 purchase of St. Mary's and Good Samaritan medical centers. Attorney general's office spokeswoman Sandi Copes said its review is not complete, though at this point the hospital is not seen as in violation of the agreement. While divers are the main users, hyperbaric services also are used to treat victims of carbon monoxide poisoning - a particularly high risk during hurricane season, when people use portable generators to power their homes after storms. But St. Mary's maintained Wednesday that there wasn't enough demand to justify continuing the service. Since July 2006, St. Mary's says, it has provided emergency hyperbaric services to 27 patients - 19 divers and eight suffering from carbon monoxide poisoning. To put that in perspective, the hospital handles about 50,000 emergency room visits a year. The hospital spends about $140,000 a year to pay doctors and respiratory therapists to be on call for its hyperbaric chamber, Carbone said. With the declining number of patients and increasing difficulty finding doctors and therapists, he said it no longer made sense to keep the emergency service. However, the hospital was willing to reinstitute the emergency service in response to the outcry from the region's diving community and to give local public health officials and other hospitals a chance to find a long-term solution, Carbone said. St. Mary's is one of four hospitals in Palm Beach County with a hyperbaric oxygen chamber but was the only one open for emergencies. The other chambers are at Boca Raton Community Hospital, Wellington Regional Medical Center and Bethesda Memorial Hospital in Boynton Beach. | | According to CDNN Editor Luther Monroe, hyperbaric chambers save thousands of divers involved in scuba diving accidents which often go unreported due to territorial marketing and sales agreements by DAN - Divers Alert Network - and its independent corporate affiliates in Europe, Asia, South Africa and Japan. Though dozens of Florida hospitals employ hyperbaric oxygen to help diabetics and others with wound healing, many facilities have stopped providing it for emergencies because of the cost of staffing and the concern about a growing number of uninsured patients who use it. Carbone said St. Mary's officials hope to meet in the next few weeks with local divers, the Palm Beach County Health Department, the Health Care District of Palm Beach County and other hospitals with hyperbaric chambers to discuss whether and how to keep the facility open for emergencies. St. Mary's needs not just financial support but help from the other hospitals to handle emergencies, he said. "We need to form a group to calmly discuss whether we need the services in the county, and if we do, how are we going to support it," he said. "If the community wants this service, we need their help to support it." Health Care District Chief Executive Officer Dwight Chenette cautioned that "it's not an easy question" whether taxpayer dollars should be used to step in when a for-profit hospital cuts a service. Carbone said money for the service could be generated from a new tax on divers or even money from tourist taxes. St. Mary's financial condition - the hospital lost $5 million last year - and the fact the emergency service is a financial drain was a factor in the cutoff, Carbone said. But the inability to recruit and retain staff to handle those emergencies also was a key factor, he said. The facility went from three doctors to two in the past year. As a result, the hyperbaric chamber had been available for emergency use an average of only 22 days a month since January, Carbone said. Since 2004, St. Mary's has had state permission to reduce the number of days the chamber was open for emergencies. The state Agency for Health Care Administration exempted the hospital from being open for emergencies every day because of its staffing problems. Carbone also offered a mea culpa for how the hospital refrained from a public announcement of the closing until The Post reported it June 27. "We could have done a better job communicating to the public and the diving community," said Carbone, a scuba diver himself since 1973. "We learned a lesson on this one." SOURCE - West Palm Beach PostSCUBA FORUMDISCUSS THIS TOPIC - Dive in and have your say at Scuba Forum |
