Happy birthday to the RBWH Hyperbaric team!

The Hyperbaric Medicine Service, Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital turned 11 last month. 

The unit officially opened on 17 May 2010 and treated the first patient just seven days later. 

On 12 May 2021 the unit performed their 10,000th chamber compression, an exciting milestone for the team.  

The unit is currently the third busiest unit in Australia and New Zealand, after the Prince of Wales Hospital, Sydney and The Alfred Hospital, Melbourne. 

Three of the original staff (Bob Webb, Bridget Woodhouse and Jean Halpin) are still working in the unit. 

The unit is the only one in Queensland to possess both a multi-place (3 lock) recompression chamber and a mono-place recompression chamber. 

The treatment of decompression illness in SCUBA divers makes up less than five percent of the unit’s workload.  The majority of patients are treated for soft tissue radiation injury, chronic wounds and Idiopathic Sudden Sensorineural Hearing Loss. The team provides a 24/7 on call service and the most common reason (after decompression illness) for an urgent after-hours treatment is Central Retinal Artery Occlusion. 

One of the unit’s notable successes was treating a young diver retrieved from the Pacific Islands suffering from Decompression Sickness and Cerebral Arterial Gas Embolism. The patient arrived at RBWH and was immediately admitted to the ICU to be ventilated.  The patient received eight Hyperbaric Oxygen Treatments while ventilated.  At a six week follow up the patient had no detectable abnormal neurology.