CLEVELAND, OH – (February 1, 2010) – St. Vincent Charity Medical Center has reopened its remodeled Hyperbaric Medicine Center and is now accepting emergent and non-emergent patients on a full-time basis. St. Vincent Charity Medical Center provides the only emergency hyperbaric treatment in Cuyahoga County.
For all emergency referrals please contact our main hospital number at 216.861.6200 or our emergency department at 216.363.2536. For outpatient referrals please contact the Hyperbaric Medicine Center at 216.363.3315.
St. Vincent Charity Medical Center opened Cleveland's first Hyperbaric Medicine Center in March 1993. Originally developed by the U.S. Navy to treat divers suffering from decompression sickness or “the bends,” this high-pressure oxygen chamber is used to care for a variety of illnesses. It is the preferred method of treatment for victims of carbon monoxide poisoning and late complications of radiation therapy.
Repeated painless hyperbaric treatments, lasting 90 minutes each, encourage the body to develop new capillaries that transfer blood and oxygen to damaged tissues and promote advanced wound healing and improve infection control. In addition, treatment within the chamber constricts blood vessels; reducing swelling in patients suffering from severe burns and crush injuries.
The chamber is filled with 100 percent oxygen at pressures several times greater than sea level atmosphere. While in the pressurized chamber, a patient receives almost three times the amount of oxygen that can be provided through an oxygen facemask. All of the benefits provided by the hyperbaric oxygen therapy are the result of the extra oxygen being carried within the bloodstream and delivered to the body's tissues.
Hyperbaric oxygen treatment produces one or more of the following effects:
· Increased oxygen delivery to injured tissue
· Advanced wound healing
· Preservation of damaged tissues
· Elimination and / or reduction of the effects of toxic substances
· Reduction or elimination of tissue obstruction by gas bubbles
· Greater blood vessel formation
· Improved infection control