‘Bends’ chamber closure leaves Navy in the lurch

Date Published: 09-Jun-2011

By CIARAN TIERNEY

A state-of-the-art €1 million recompression unit at University Hospital Galway (UHG) has been closed for an indefinite period, forcing the Naval Service on standby to treat divers suffering from “the bends” over successive Bank Holiday weekends.

The Irish Coast Guard was forced to put the Naval Service on standby in case any divers got into difficulties throughout last weekend, because of the unavailability of the only hospital-based facility of its kind in the Republic.

Staffing and funding issues are understood to be responsible for the closure of the recompression chamber, or national hyperbaric unit, at UHG even though it only opened for the first time at the turn of the year.

HSE West have declined to comment on the closure throughout this week and any divers in difficulties would have been forced to seek treatment at the inferior Naval Service chamber at Haulbowline, Co. Cork, which has only limited facilities.

Otherwise, scuba divers with suspected cases of decompression sickness would be forced to seek treatment in Northern Ireland, the Isle of Man, or Plymouth in the United Kingdom.

Since the first chamber opened in Galway in 1976, a team of trained volunteers have backed up medical staff at UHG. That facility was closed down in 2008 and replaced by the state-of-the-art unit just this year.

“The problem is that this is the national chamber, but the funding for it does not come nationally,” said Dr Noel Flynn of UHG last week. “We are relying on a lot of goodwill here and we really do need to be independently financed. The National Hyperbaric Chamber should not come out of the hospital funding.”

For more on this story, see the Galway City Tribune.