{"id":5164,"date":"2026-02-03T09:03:41","date_gmt":"2026-02-02T23:03:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/metronorth.health.qld.gov.au\/stars\/uncategorized\/rbwh-hyperbaric-medicine-team"},"modified":"2026-02-03T09:03:41","modified_gmt":"2026-02-02T23:03:41","slug":"rbwh-hyperbaric-medicine-team","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/metronorth.health.qld.gov.au\/stars\/news\/rbwh-hyperbaric-medicine-team","title":{"rendered":"A ‘deep dive’ with the RBWH hyperbaric medicine team"},"content":{"rendered":"

A ‘deep dive’ with the RBWH hyperbaric medicine team<\/h1>\n
\"RBWH

RBWH patient Gordon getting ready to undergo hyperbaric oxygen therapy at RBWH.<\/p><\/div>\n

It\u2019s not quite \u2018under the sea\u2019, but every week at Royal Brisbane and Women\u2019s Hospital (RBWH), patients are taking a dive in the hospital\u2019s hyperbaric chamber as part of their treatment.<\/h4>\n

Hyperbaric Medicine Staff Specialist Dr Graeme Kay explains the types of patients they work with.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf people know about hyperbaric medicine, it\u2019s usually related to helping divers recover from decompression sickness, also known as the bends,\u201d Dr Kay said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile that is part of our work, it\u2019s far from our day-to-day. On a typical day in our hyperbaric chamber, you would find people there to help their wounds heal and others with soft tissue infections or radiation injuries.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hyperbaric oxygen therapy works by delivering pure oxygen to the body in an enclosed space, with higher-than-normal air pressure. This gets more oxygen to tissue damaged by disease or injury to aid recovery.<\/p>\n

RBWH patient Gordon now has 35 dives under his belt as part of helping oxygenate his blood to treat chronic wounds.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like the oxygen treatment is really helping. The technology is amazing, and it\u2019s incredible how my whole body feels the effects of oxygenating my blood supply,\u201d Gordon said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe feeling of being in the chamber is a little strange at first. It\u2019s a little bit like a wine buzz, but without the ill effects.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dr Kay has now been with the service for 8 years and continues to see the uses of oxygen therapy evolve.<\/p>\n

\u201cResearch continues to demonstrate the diversity of uses for oxygen therapy. I have no doubt we will continue to see demand for our service grow as we take more dives with our patients,\u201d Dr Kay said.<\/p>\n

More information about the RBWH Hyperbaric Medicine Service is available here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

RBWH\u2019s Hyperbaric Medicine Service team recently performed their 50,000th treatment, as part of helping patients recover from much more than just the bends!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":77,"featured_media":5165,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_searchwp_excluded":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,72,105],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5164","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-rbwh","category-metro-north-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/metronorth.health.qld.gov.au\/stars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5164","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/metronorth.health.qld.gov.au\/stars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/metronorth.health.qld.gov.au\/stars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/metronorth.health.qld.gov.au\/stars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/77"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/metronorth.health.qld.gov.au\/stars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5164"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/metronorth.health.qld.gov.au\/stars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5164\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5167,"href":"https:\/\/metronorth.health.qld.gov.au\/stars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5164\/revisions\/5167"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/metronorth.health.qld.gov.au\/stars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5165"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/metronorth.health.qld.gov.au\/stars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5164"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/metronorth.health.qld.gov.au\/stars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5164"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/metronorth.health.qld.gov.au\/stars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5164"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}