Major upgrades to The Alfred’s Hyperbaric chamber complete

Senior biomedical Engineer Theo Tsouras said the upgrades further enhance the breadth of care the service can offer.

“This process has allowed the Alfred hyperbaric engineers to implement and install the latest technological advancements , replicating the setting of a modern-day intensive care cubicle,” he said.

In order to continue to provide a service for critically ill patients while the multiplace chamber underwent the upgrades, the team developed the capacity to utilise one of their two monoplace chambers (which compresses one person at a time).

Acting Head of Unit Dr. Bridget Devaney said maintaining the ability to provide high quality care for the incredibly sick was a major logistical effort.

“The type of patient we needed to be able to manage, which ordinarily would have received hyperbaric oxygen treatment in the multiplace chamber, were those intensive care patients on life support – those who are intubated, ventilated, have invasive monitoring, multiple infusions.

"We needed to be able to safely deliver all of this, with full control from outside of the chamber, as well as take blood tests from the patient, all whilst they are inside a small, cylindrical, pressurised hyperbaric chamber - and this is what we achieved. It is the first time such technology has been utilised for intensive care patients in Australia.”

Dr. Devaney said it didn’t take long for the new system to be heavily tested.

“Within a week, the team received an unprecedented number of referrals for critically ill patients requiring hyperbaric oxygen treatment,” she said.

“On average we would expect to treat one critically ill patient every few weeks, but in this particular week 13 treatments were completed on four ICU patients.”

"Importantly, this meant that despite our multiplace chamber being offline for the upgrade, no critically ill patients needed to be transferred interstate to receive treatment, they were all able to remain here in Victoria, near their families.