Hi-Spec Ventilator
Mater Hospital Critical Care Area
By Dr Brian Marsh
Grant awarded in 2005 - €60,000
Many patients present to the Mater Intensive Care Unit with severe difficulties in oxygenation. As a result, more than 80% of the patients in the Intensive Care Unit in the Mater require mechanical ventilation. For the overall majority of these patients, the therapies initiated and the mechanical ventilation provided, would prove successful in optimising the patients in helping them through their disease course to a successful outcome.
However, for a smaller percentage, conventional methods of mechanical ventilation can prove to be inadequate. Once faced with such a difficult circumstance, the Intensive Care medical and nursing staff needs to have available to them very specific and very hi-spec ventilator equipment. We have been fortunate over the years to be the recipients of a number of substantial donations from either patients or families. These financial donations have been enhanced further by the generous supplementation of these donations with grant monies from the Mater Hospital Foundation. We have, therefore, always managed to remain at the forefront of available technologies for our patients.
In recent years we have used these monies to purchase a number of hi-spec ventilators, which are in constant use in our Intensive Care Unit. We have also managed to invest in a very particular type of ventilator equipment known as a High Frequency Oscillator, which has allowed us provide for the oxygen requirements of a number of patients in 2005/2006, which would have stretched the capabilities of more conventional equipment. Although these patients have also been amongst our most critically ill, we are happy to report that the outcomes for this patient group have also been very good.
The critical care staff at the Mater Hospital are enormously grateful for donations received and for the opportunities that this funding has given the team in their caring for these very sick patients. The staff feel in a very fortunate position to be able to look after these patients and with the help of the technologies afforded by such generosity, it is extremely rewarding to report good results.
