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| Hyperbaric chambers, like those hauled to Portsmouth, above, help people suffering from more than a dozen conditions, including injuries sustained by troops in combat.
(Michael Kestner photos | The Virginian-Pilot ) |
By Kate Wiltrout
The Virginian-Pilot
PORTSMOUTH
It took almost $4 million, a decade of planning and a 500-ton crane to install two massive hyperbaric chambers at Portsmouth Naval Medical Center in 2000.
Seven years later, not a single patient has been treated there.
Designed to help people suffering from more than a dozen conditions - including the kind of injuries suffered by troops in combat - the chambers were never outfitted with the specialized piping and instrumentation needed to make them work. Funding for that died in Congress six years ago.
In an interview with The Virginian-Pilot on Wednesday, the hospital's top official said he isn't sure it's worth $9 million to finish the chambers.
"I think there's medical benefit in hyperbaric therapy for specific medical processes," Rear Adm. Thomas Cullison said. "I'm not sure there's $9 million worth of economic benefit for using the chambers as designed to get there," he said.
Today, the sky-blue steel chambers sit idle at the Charette Health Care Center, in a specially designed wing completed in 1999. That frustrates both the politicians who supported the project and the retired Navy doctors who say the therapy could help speed the recovery of hundreds of patients each year - including service members injured in Iraq and Afghanistan.
"Without question, to go that far in the construction of a very, very unique facility and not complete it is just senseless," said former Congressman Owen Pickett, who helped secure money for the chambers' construction.
 "Rather than doing an all-or-none, politically charged finish-this-thing or don't-finish-this-thing solution, I'd like to look at it from an academic point of view," said Rear Adm. Thomas Cullison, above. |
Pickett, whose district included Virginia Beach and part of Norfolk, retired from Congress in 2001. The project's other local champion - Rep. Norm Sisisky - died in office that same year.
In response to inquiries from The Pilot, Sen. John Warner, R-Va., has asked the Navy to reassess the unfinished project.
"We're just asking them to take another look at that, in light of the passage time and the best care for returning veterans," John Ullyot, Warner's spokesman, said this week. "We're willing to work with them, should this be a priority of theirs."
In 2000, getting the chambers into place required moving power lines and putting the behemoth structures - 92,000 and 77,000 pounds, respectively - on a barge, floating them down the Elizabeth River and hoisting them into place after removing part of the roof.
Unlike local hospitals, which can treat one or two people at a time, the Portsmouth facility would fit as many as 26 patients and would be one of the largest in the nation.
It could treat patients in wheelchairs and on gurneys, and even allow doctors to operate on critically ill patients in the larger chamber, a 20-foot sphere.
Hyperbaric medicine goes far beyond treating divers with decompression sickness, also called the bends. Pressurized oxygen is used regularly to help heal chronic wounds, crush injuries, thermal burns and skin grafts. Bones and tissue damaged from radiation in cancer treatment also benefit, and the treatment helps diabetic patients with wounds in their extremities avoid amputation.
Hyperbaric chambers sometimes are used outside hospital settings for other conditions, such as cerebral palsy and autism, but there is controversy over their effectiveness.
Dr. Frederick Lassen, a retired Navy captain who was director of surgery at the Portsmouth facility, said he regrets that the chambers aren't being used to treat injured troops, whose wounds he thinks could benefit from hyperbaric therapy.
Lassen, an ear, nose and throat physician now in private practice, wrote to politicians about the unfinished chambers last fall.
Retired Rear Adm. William McDaniel headed the hospital when plans were being made for the chambers.
"I cannot tell you one iota as to why they are not being utilized," McDaniel said in a phone interview from Oak Harbor, Wash. "It's been shown that for a lot of people with chronic infections, hyperbaric therapy really does a lot of good."
McDaniel said local hospital officials at the time were excited about the prospect of sending civilian patients to Portsmouth Naval Medical Center for hyperbaric therapy.
Instead, military doctors at Portsmouth still must refer patients who need hyperbaric treatment to local hospitals - and pick up the tab. Cullison said the Navy paid $56,000 for those off-site treatments in 2006 and an additional $48,549 this year.
The medical center's budget this year is $386 million.
Internal Navy reports obtained by The Pilot showed a much higher cost for outside treatment in 2000, the year the chambers were put into place. According to that analysis, the hospital spent $1.4 million on more than 1,000 treatments at local hospitals. Based on that figure, the report estimated that the hospital could recoup the cost of finishing the chamber in 1.1 to 7.3 years.
Cullison said he doesn't trust those numbers and cited a different analysis for the Navy's decision last year not to ask Congress for the money to finish the project. He questioned earlier studies that concluded that the Navy chambers would be used to provide more than 4,000 treatments a year to active duty military members, dependents and retirees.
"Even though one extremely optimistic estimate may cover the cost of piping (the chambers), most of them don't," Cullison said.
Instead of ripping out the chambers and converting more than 6,000 square feet of unused space into something else - or spending millions to finish the project - Cullison advocated more study.
"Rather than doing an all-or-none, politically-charged finish-this-thing or don't-finish-this-thing solution, I'd like to look at it from an academic point of view," he said.
Cullison, who has been in command of the hospital since late 2005, said he is in favor of bringing in a contractor to provide hyperbaric treatment in one or two portable chambers on hospital grounds.
Doctors could gauge from those results whether it makes sense to finish the existing chambers.
"We've had them there for seven years now already," Cullison said. "A couple, three more years of trying to figure this out in a more rational way is going to cost us less than taking them out and realizing it was a bad decision and trying to put them back.
"It would make more sense to me to just leave them there for now and work around them."
CORRECTION: Portsmouth Naval Medical Center's budget this year is $386 million. The original version of this story gave an incorrect figure.
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To All
To all you guys at election time. Who took the time to study the candidates platform. You have a right to complain. But to all you people, who didn't take the time to see where the candidate stood.Or just voted because of the candidates party.Or didn't vote at all. You don't have a right to complain.I would have loved to see the President and his failed Iraq policies go back to Texas. I was happy to help send Senator
Allen home. Maybe he can help Joe Gibbs put together another losing season. Its time for us Virginians to do our homework at election time. And tell some of these wasteful politicians, your services are no longer required.I would also like to plug this suggestion: wouldn't it be great to have our brothers and sisters in West Virginia rejoin our state. Virginia could pick up 5 more electoral votes. Giving us a little more clout.
Just like the military to waste money
I didn't even know that the hospital had these chambers! After reading this story (and learning more about hyperbaric chambers at the same time), I'm amazed the government wasted valuable money by putting these units into the hospital, only to have them sit around and not be used. Like all military and government projects, the money was well wasted on something that should be useful but instead is useless since it can't be used. I say the government and the Navy need to reasess why they need these units, and figure out how to pull the supposed 9mil out of their assess. Like someone else stated, what costs 9mil for these? And why did we have the money to start the project but not finish it 7 years ago?!?!?
Did all of you read the article?
Some of these comments make me wonder if some people didn't read the article before commenting. This chamber will help those wounded in battle serving us heal faster. It is not just for divers with the bends. It is helpful in getting healing oxygen further into the cells. This is for the people that are serving in the military to protect us. I think we can come up with $9M to show a little gratitude. Maybe cut out some of the foreign aid we're sending all over the world to countries that only insult us and then tell us we're not doing enough to help them. I could care less about foreign aid, I do care about our brave people in the military protecting us and keeping us free. They are the reason we can live the way we do. I am grateful for them and support anything that will help them when they are hurt. Fund the completion of this needed chamber now!
othetrs who can benifit
What about those who are disabled ,paid their taxes but have become unable to work.I'm one and for me to receive any help I need to be from another Country to get it.I was Navy and the help I need I cant get from Uncle Sam.I worked in the state I was born in and paid taxes but now that I can't I'm useless so no medical help to prevent illness just pain relieve till I die.Thank you all who have allowed this to happen. If there is a God you will become me and not on this side of death...God bless us all See you at the gates
Does it add up?
So it cost $4 million to buy the main parts of the chambers, transport them and place them... but it would cost $9 million more to plumb them? The most expensive part of the jacuzzi is not the pump... same with the swimming pool. Seems a little odd. Are there other chambers in the area? If not, perhaps they could get assistance from Divers Alert Network or other orgs that handle insurance for recompression chambers for diving accidents. As far as medicine, if there is evidence to support it... perhaps team up with the medical school and work on some new papers.
Money well spent!
If we can blow 500,000,000,000.00 dollars on liberating an ungratefull and lazy country, we can spend 4,000,000.00 dollars to save Navy diver's lives for the next 50 years!!
-Nuff Said Period.
How can this be an issue?
How much value do they put on human life? Are they saying that the value they put on the life (or quality of life) of hundreds to thousands of possible paitients are not worth a comparitively measily $9 million dollars????
How can this be an issue?
How much value do they put on human life? Are they saying that the value they put on the life (or quality of life) of hundreds to thousands of possible paitients are not worth a comparitively measily $9 million dollars????
Why we should have a hyperbaric facility at the Naval Hospital
I was the Diving Officer at Keyport, WA in the early 80's when the local Diving Medical Officer first developed O2 therapy treatment tables for patients that had gangrene or problem wounds. We had patients that were scheduled to have limps amputated the next week if the gangrene infection was not reverse. In every case the gangrene or problem wound start to heal in the first couple of treatments. Usually by the fourth week, the wound would be completely healed and no more treatments would be required. Word got around and we were treating patients almost twice a day. We used this opportunity to train deep sea divers to operate the chamber because this is one of their responsibilities. I truly believe we should invest the funding to complete the installation of the hyperbaric chambers because it will pay for itself in a short period of time. We need to take care of our own.
Government Waste Again
I suspect many people wouldn't mind paying taxes as much if only they felt that the money was appropriately spent.
Wasted Tax Dollars At The Hands of Military Leaders
As career Navy employee this does not surprise me. Over and over again I have witnessed similar squandering of tax dollars. I am currently overseeing a building renovation project right now where the Navy has paid a little over $800,000 for nothing more than paint, carpet and upgraded air conditioning on a 2 story building office building that will house only 10 military and civilian workers - 2 of them being the Naval Support Activities Commanding Officer and his Executive Officer. What a waste of valuable tax dollars.
I am tired of watching the Navy in particular waste money. If you can't afford to finish a project, don't start. If you are not going to spend the money necessary to meet existing building codes, don't start. If you have to eliminate an essential service to pay for a pet project, don't start. Enough is enough!!!
Precautions
I am sure that most hospitals have equipment that never gets used and that's just fine with me. It is better to have the technology and equipment and not have to use it, than it is to need the equipment and not have it available.
You can't patent oxygen
Hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT) is generally considered experimental and therefore only a few of the many medical conditions that might be helped by HBOT are reimbursed by health care insurance. It costs millions of dollars to conduct research that meets FDA standards to allow claims for successful treatment of a specific illness. Because oxygen cannot be patented, profits on sales of oxygen are too small to pay for studies that meet FDA requirements. Our government is willing to spend millions of dollars to fight a war but not spend a few million to fund a project that would help those injured fighting that war. If the idea was good 7 years ago so what changed? HBOT has historically been associated with significant politics involving physicians, insurance and pharmaceutical companies. If the current administration could make money off of oxygen instead of the pharmaceuticals they are so heavily invested in, they would put more effort into the completion of this project.
$4 million hyperbaric chambers = Pork
Government as usual. What company made money at the taxpayers expense for a project that was not funded properly or not funded period? The Congress should go after the profits and commissions that were paid to the contractor for this project. Same for the lobbyists who promoted it. What a shame!
Put the chambers into service
The Portsmouth Naval Medical Center, First and Finest in medical care for the U. S. Navy, needs to have these chambers working. $9 million is a drop in the bucket compared to the benefits that can be achieved in treatment over the lifespan that the chambers would be in operation. What was Congress thinking when they cut funding in the middle of the project? Our troops deserve better than this...... they deserve a smarter President.
Typical Government Spending..
So why is this story a "surprise" to anyone? This is typical of how the government mis-spends our tax dollars everyday of the year. Half-assing everything is a standard procedure for them. It's an Operating Instruction that they have to follow. Maybe they can hire a team of consultants for a few million to get some input into what direction they should go since Rear End Thomas Cullison doesn't have a clue obviously.
Surprise Surprise Surprise
Is this a surprise to anyone? The government wasting taxpayer money?
wow
I cannot believe there is a facility of this caliber not in use. What a disservice to those individuals whom could really benefit from something like this. And what is 9 million dollars to the Navy? They spend that much just buying a new prop and a fan shroud...an atrocity.
It was a boondoggle to begin with...
...and everybody at Portsmouth knew it. But that kind of waste is typical for pork-barrel products out of Congress. Does Portsmouth, Virginia really need one of the nations' largest hyperbaric centers? I never thought so! Praise Admiral Cullison for being conservative with our tax dollars, not chasing good money after bad. If RADM Cullison thought NAVMEDCEN Portsmouth truly needed this hyperbaric equipment, he would be its strongest advocate. "But it could help returning veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan." So could every other dollar spent on military and veterans health care, so drop that histrionic excuse! That is not ample reason for handing them a blank check! Maybe some philanthropist or wealthy entrepeneur would like to underwrite the project with private funds?
Good god people!
Better to have than want in any medical situation. I'd bet my next paycheck that every diver in this area for 100 miles would be glad to know those chambers stand ready for use. Damn shame they won't finish them. Just because you don't currently need a box of bandaids in the bathroom, doesn't mean you don't buy a box and wait. Not finishing at least the large chamber is denying people an option that could better treat them. 9 million is chump change to the government, the hospitals and clinics spend probably 6 times that amount on drugs alone per quarter they will never use but have ready. Want another example? Snake bite serum in vials costs a minimum of $450 each and one patient will use between 20 and 40 vials for treatment. But they keep that hanging around just in case and hope they never have to use it either... Bottom line is "How much is your life, or your child's/spouse/dad's/mom's life worth?" I'd bet it's more than 9 million...