Oxygen heals deadly wounds quicker

Twentyfour-year-old IT professional Bhavik Gada’s aspirations were reduced to dust when he suffered a serious accident last year which cost him his leg. Gada was on his way back from his SEEPZ office to his home in Kandivili, when his bike skidded off the road. He was thrown away and a heavy duty truck ran over his left leg.

Crush injuries such as Gada’s may cause infection to spread throughout the body eventually causing death, if they are not treated in time. Gada underwent Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy (HBOT) at Godrej Hospital in Vikhroli to accelerate the healing process of his amputated leg.

“The accident had left me distraught. The trauma of losing a leg is unbearably painful. I had bled heavily and was under the constant risk of getting sepsis. Apart from consuming antibiotics and debridement of skin that I underwent every day, 10 cycles of oxygen therapy sped up the healing process of my wounds in half the time that it would have taken without the therapy,” said Gada.

In HBOT, patient lies down in a transparent pressurised hyperbaric chamber and breathes 100% oxygen. The atmospheric air contains 20% oxygen content. “Oxygen is a vital component in the body. At the centre of the wound be it a trauma injury, a diabetic ulcer ridden foot or a burns wound, there is zero oxygen due to lack of blood supply. When the pressure in the HBOT is increased by 1.5 to 3 times the normal pressure and oxygen supply is increased and adequate oxygen reaches the affected area.

New cells and capillaries carrying blood to the wound area are generated and the healing process becomes much faster,” said Dr Vinay Singh, HBOT consultant, Dr LH Hiranandani Hospital. “The experience is akin to diving deep sea where pressure is higher than atmosphere.

But it is controlled and each session is 60 or 90 minutes duration and the patient can watch television or a DVD movie as the sound comes inside the chamber even though the TV is outside.
If the patient experiences uneasiness in the ears due to high pressure, we immediately put the patient to ease.”

While Godrej Hospital in Vikhroli has multi-place HBOT chambers with a capacity to carry six patients at a time, private-run Jaslok and Hiranandani Hospitals have mono-place chambers customized to the therapy needs of each patient.

On an average, a patient may require 10 to 20 cycles of HBOT for the healing process. While a set of 10 cycles may cost anywhere between Rs30,000 and Rs1 lakh in private hospitals, BMC-run Kasturba Hospital has two mono-place HBOT chambers which offer treatment for a mere Rs3,000 for 10 cycles.

Sources said inspite of having a similar facility in a public setup the two machines are not utilised to an optimum as they have become outdated.

“The machines are of 30 years old. We use only one at a time as there is a fear of the machines conking off if used together. Ten patients are treated through the day on a machine,” said Dr Minoo Sanjana, head, general surgery, Nair Hospital.  “We are in the process of acquiring a new machine in the next financial year with an investment of nearly Rs2 crore to upgrade the facility.”

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