Diver denied treatment at a Chamber in Panama City...

[chillyinCanada]

Hmm, says they are "selective".

Perhaps in the event of six divers all suffering the same level of decompression sickness, they might let them in.

 

[digdug87]

That's pretty wild that they advertise it. Has anybody checked to see if this facility is recommended by DAN?

In this day and age of cost cutting and in the USA, government regulations, I would expect that more facilities will drop the ability to treat DCI, as it is not cost effective.

In regards to being selective, as long as the patient is stable, not in danger of dying, a facility can deny treatment for just about any reason they want to.

 

[Wookie]

There are 4-6 chambers in Key West. None of them take the diving public to treat DCS. UTMB Galveston has one of the nicest chamber complexes in the world. They haven't treated divers in 10 years. Just because a chamber is available somewhere doesn't mean that divers will be treated there. It takes more than just a physical chamber, tech, physician, and tender to make a chamber work, it takes all of them all the time. A smaller hospital like Panama City would have to pay for 4 or 5 chamber physicians and 8-10 techs to treat DCS cases full time. No one has the kind of budget to just keep these folks sitting around in the hopes that somone is going to come in and use the facilities.

Everyone complains about the high cost of healthcare then want to spend money keeping a chamber that might be used once every 5 years open and operational? How much sense does that make?

 

[lowviz]

...//... Perhaps in the event of six divers all suffering the same level of decompression sickness, ...

Ooooh. you just gave me an idea for a Groupon...

---------- Post added September 23rd, 2014 at 08:05 AM ----------

...//... No one has the kind of budget to just keep these folks sitting around in the hopes that somone is going to come in and use the facilities.

Everyone complains about the high cost of healthcare then want to spend money keeping a chamber that might be used once every 5 years open and operational? How much sense does that make?

About as much sense as actually having, advertising, but not using it...

 

[drbill]

Sure glad we have our own recompression chamber here on the island. And as for in-water recompression, I knew a VERY experienced professional diver who tried that... and sadly is no longer with us.

 

[D_B]

The mission of Bay Medical’s Hyperbaric Department is to provide Bay County and the surrounding region convenient access to state-of-the-art Hyperbaric Medicine. We specialize in non-healing and problem wounds as well as selective emergency conditions.

Bay Medical’s Hyperbaric Department houses a 30-foot long by 6-foot diameter multi-place hyperbaric oxygen chamber. The chamber accommodates up to six patients allowing for friendly patient interaction.

The chamber is compressed with purified air and is capable of pressures six times that of normal atmospheric pressure. During every treatment a medical professional will accompany you and tend to your needs. In addition, the chamber is designed for patient comfort and convenience with such features as television with DVD player and temperature control.

State-of-the-art technology combined with highly skilled staff who are certified and trained in hyperbaric medicine, make our hyperbaric program the most comprehensive of its kind on the Emerald Coast.

Good luck with that

I'm going to check if DAN has any info (nope)
I wonder if they know which ones are, and would direct you to only those facilities that are staffed/capable in treating DCS?

 

[doctormike]

There are 4-6 chambers in Key West. None of them take the diving public to treat DCS. UTMB Galveston has one of the nicest chamber complexes in the world. They haven't treated divers in 10 years. Just because a chamber is available somewhere doesn't mean that divers will be treated there. It takes more than just a physical chamber, tech, physician, and tender to make a chamber work, it takes all of them all the time. A smaller hospital like Panama City would have to pay for 4 or 5 chamber physicians and 8-10 techs to treat DCS cases full time. No one has the kind of budget to just keep these folks sitting around in the hopes that somone is going to come in and use the facilities.

Everyone complains about the high cost of healthcare then want to spend money keeping a chamber that might be used once every 5 years open and operational? How much sense does that make?

Exactly. Having the facility to treat DCS is more than just having the chamber, and a lot of places that have a chamber for the elective treatment of surgical wounds and burns that don't have the same staffing as one set up for DCS.

In NYC there are a number of chambers but only one - at Jacobi Hospital in the Bronx - that is set up for DCS treatment (ask me how I know!).

So while I agree that the hospital needs to update their website, it doesn't necessarily follow that they were derelict of duty in this particular case if they weren't equipped to treat injured divers. And if they couldn't do it safely, then the diver would be better off being sent to an appropriate facility.

This also underscores the importance of knowing where the nearest chamber is in case of an injury. If the boat was offshore and the patient was evacuated by chopper, they would have been better off heading for Mobile. Maybe the coast guard just looked at the hospital's web site too?

 

[Mike]

There are 4-6 chambers in Key West. None of them take the diving public to treat DCS. UTMB Galveston has one of the nicest chamber complexes in the world. They haven't treated divers in 10 years. Just because a chamber is available somewhere doesn't mean that divers will be treated there. It takes more than just a physical chamber, tech, physician, and tender to make a chamber work, it takes all of them all the time. A smaller hospital like Panama City would have to pay for 4 or 5 chamber physicians and 8-10 techs to treat DCS cases full time. No one has the kind of budget to just keep these folks sitting around in the hopes that somone is going to come in and use the facilities.

Everyone complains about the high cost of healthcare then want to spend money keeping a chamber that might be used once every 5 years open and operational? How much sense does that make?

More than likely this is simply the truth. The fact that there is one line on a website page that mentions DCS out of a list of 30 other things they treat, probably will not be a point of discussion once they update their website and delete that from the page.

Everyone's outrage over them not offering treatment for divers would quickly turn to outrage for the injured diver and cries of suing the hospital for malpractice if they relented and brought in Jerry Lewis as the nutty professor hired part time only on Tuesday to treat a diver.

 

[lowviz]

...//... Everyone's outrage over them not offering treatment for divers ...

Just for the record, no outrage here. The hospital did the right thing. The problem, as I see it, is that there is a perception that the hospital treats divers.

This adds unnecessary delays in treatment.

 

[Ana]

Well this is just par for the course in this forsaken place. Talk about biting the hand that feeds you.

They claim to have Florida's most beautiful beaches because the top layer of sand is white and makes for a pretty photo. advertise in all the square states directly north of us, but they don't bother to have lifeguards, nah instead they have a convoluted system of flags that makes the homeland color warning system a logical set up. So the land locked tourist that are used to fresh water in ponds or whatever, are faced with rip currents present every mile or 2 most of the days. Meanwhile they just play with colored flags so the city (or the county or whoever) is not liable for the few tourists that drown every season.

I saw it in a preview for the news a couple of days ago, your typical "watch later why our hospital doesn't treat divers anymore" My husband commented we'll have to watch (which we never do) and we talked about it, why bother watching, whatever the reason they will broadcast is sure to be a stupid reason. This place fills their mouth claiming they have amazing wrecks, and every so often come up with costly campaigns to brag about the handful of metal chunks and construction debris they call dive sites. Well how about making sure things get done properly?

And now Bay Medical, supposedly a "world class BS" finally faced with a situation admits they haven't treated a diver in years. @#&ckers !!!! I bet most of the dive shops around had Bay Medical as the place to go in case of emergency.
Then again, fits this place so well, wonder how many dive shops here actually update their emergency plan once a year or so, like any normal outfit should.
People I know that dive for a living, are forced by their regulations not only to confirm availability of emergency service but to describe the process to be admitted so that their emergency folder includes phone numbers, POC's, even where to park in order to make it as efficient as possible.