Locals set to breathe easier
MOSSMAN
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A PORTABLE ventilator will help keep Mossman patients in their community, rather than having to travel away to Cairns.
Mossman Hospital Emergency Department clinical nurse Kath Anich said the device, which performs invasive ventilation, non-invasive ventilation and hi-flow nasal oxygen, could be used on babies, children and adults when they come into hospital.
“For people who have breathing difficulties, sometimes there is a narrow window, where if you can get them onto a device like this, it will help them more than normal oxygen,” Anich said.
“It might even prevent them deteriorating to the point they stop breathing or need more invasive intervention,” she said.
“This is usually a device that larger emergency departments have, but for us to have it will mean we can better stabilise critically ill patients before they are helicoptered out to Cairns, or even that they won’t have to be transferred out to Cairns at all,” she said.
At a cost of $44,000, the ventilator was bought by the Far North Queensland Hospital Foundation.
“We’re really thankful to the Foundation for providing this to us – we wouldn’t have had it otherwise and we know it will make a big difference to many of our patients,” Anich said.
Foundation CEO Tony Franz said it was a pleasure to provide equipment that would make such an immediate difference to patient outcomes.
“We can see that this will have a positive impact on patients and the community overall because there is obviously a cost and it becomes more emotionally difficult when loved ones are in hospital some distance away from home,” Franz said.
The item was funded through donations as well as profits from the Foundation’s cafes and carpark.
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