Authority mulls oxygen therapy
The use of high-pressure oxygen, or hyperbaric, treatment in public hospitals is being assessed by a technical team, said William Ho Shiu-wei, the former chief executive of the Hospital Authority who was recently appointed chief executive of the Tung Wah Group of Hospitals.
The authority team was studying how many patients might need hyperbaric treatment, where the equipment should be used and in what hospitals, and whether it should be available in only one hospital for the trial, Dr Ho said.
Dr Ho's disclosure follows appeals by the wife of paralysed policeman Jacky Chu Chun-kwok, who has asked the authority to consider offering the treatment.
He said the Tung Wah Group's Kwong Wah hospital first raised the idea with the Kowloon West Cluster. It was then discussed at a higher level of the authority.
'The team is considering only how to implement it, and how to get the medical staff to do it, how many patients and what types of patients can use this. The team is also considering whether there are any side effects,' Dr Ho said, adding that the team was also considering whether the treatment could be provided by smaller, portable devices than those used in hospitals elsewhere.
The availability of the treatment varies from country to country, but it is widely used on the mainland and in the United States.
Dr Ho said doctors believed that patients who could not be helped by conventional medicines might benefit from the treatment.
