Diving insurer withdrew cover for island's hyperbaric chamber due to medical treatment concerns
A GLOBAL diving insurer withdrew its cover of the hyperbaric chamber over the high costs, unusual practices and the way first-aid response is administered, its MD has said.
Dive Master Insurance recently informed policyholders it was unable to support the £30,000 fixed fee for use of the recompression chamber.
Health and Social Care has acknowledged the costs are at the upper end of charges globally for this treatment, but said it was a one-off fee regardless of how many sessions a person has in the chamber.
Elaborating on the company's decision to pull its cover, Dive Master managing director Robert Archell said it had serious concerns over the medical treatment available on-site.
'Our decision was not just about the new fixed charge for the use of the recompression chamber on Guernsey. There are wider issues in this change for resident divers and tourist divers visiting Guernsey,' he said. 'When the St John facility closed, the States had an obligation to provide a recompression facility for divers at work.
'This was the justification for the procurement of the new hyperbaric chamber. However, when we enquired about the medical support for sick and injured recreational divers at the hospital, we were advised that the protocol put in place relied upon remote hyperbaric diagnostic support via telephone to a UK NHS facility with on-call diving doctors.'
That the chamber has no diving doctor on-site responsible for clinical decisions is 'fundamentally flawed', he said.
'When we queried if this method was suitable for recreational divers we were told it was usual practice in offshore facilities where a doctor was not present and hyperbaric first-aid response was being administered by an experienced nurse or a diver medic technician based in an offshore facility.'
