Contents under pressure

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 20/09/2024 (408 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Seven years ago, after suffering with prostate cancer and accompanying organ damage from its treatment, Winnipeg marketing executive Martin Hiebert’s oncologist considered one last option: hyperbaric oxygen therapy.

Hiebert had developed a fistula and was very ill. He had been warned he might need to have a colostomy bag for the rest of his life.

He had to wait several months, but finally got an opening in a Calgary clinic. After several treatments — at a cost of about $35,000 for Manitoba Health — Hiebert left in good health.

While he was spending those weeks in Calgary receiving hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT), which involves breathing pure oxygen in a pressurized environment, Hiebert said to himself: “What am I doing here? Why don’t we have this in Manitoba?”

After five years of research and close to $5 million, Prairie Hyperbarics is just about ready to open in Winnipeg.

Hiebert and business partner Dr. Karen Moran de Muller have built a 4,400-square-foot clinic that includes three medical-grade hyperbaric chambers built by a Florida company.

They are the first and only such chambers in Manitoba.

When Prairie Hyperbarics opens — it still needs accreditation from the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Manitoba — it will be the only place to receive such treatment between Toronto and Calgary.

Originally designed to treat decompression illness from diving accidents, HBOT started to be broadly deployed in the mid-20th century.

Health Canada recognizes HBOT as an effective treatment for 14 specific conditions, including embolisms, carbon monoxide poisoning, crush injuries, decompression sickness, enhancement of healing for wounds such as diabetic foot ulcers, delayed radiation injury, skin grafts and flaps that are not healing well, and thermal burns.

Researchers around the world claim it can also be used to treat such conditions as multiple sclerosis, cerebral palsy, cancer, AIDS, stroke and migraine headaches — but Health Canada states there is no scientific proof to support these claims.

Hiebert said Prairie Hyperbarics intends to operate as a medical clinic, with doctors and trained technicians on staff at all times.

While the facility has yet to be accredited, the CPSM has approved Moran de Muller as its medical director.

“This is a risky venture because we are breaking new ground in Manitoba,” said Moran de Muller, a family doctor who practices out of Crestview Clinic. “But it is not. It is an approved service that Manitoba Health recognizes and pays for outside the province.”

She and Hiebert are hopeful the government’s stated desire to eliminate the practice of sourcing medical procedures outside the province will encourage it to expedite the regulatory process so Manitoba doctors can start prescribing the treatment more readily.

“CPSM is not in a position to comment on the Prairie Hyperbarics clinic. Until an accreditation process is completed, we cannot comment on facilities that are in the accreditation process,” said CPSM spokeswoman Wendy Elias-Gagnon.

A Manitoba health department spokesperson said: “The province has accommodated patients with hyperbaric chamber treatments within an acute care setting, but in order for it to be covered by the province, it must be prescribed by a physician.”

Hiebert said the partners have gone to great pains to ensure everything about the clinic — built in a former RBC branch on Portage Avenue in St. James — is of medical-grade quality.

If the clinic had been in operation when he had to travel to Alberta, it would have saved Manitoba Health $20,000, Hiebert said.

“We believe we can save the province $5 million per year,” he added. “We’re not asking (for any financial assistance) … we’re giving.”

Moran de Muller said while there might be some professional awareness required, she believes many Manitoba doctors would be comfortable in prescribing HBOT. And while she is worried the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority may be hung up on whether such a treatment should only be attached to a hospital, she points out there are private clinics in provinces across the country.

“We are going ahead because we believe in it,” she said,

Dr. Geoff Zbitnew, president of the Canadian Undersea and Hyperbaric Medicine Association, which supports and monitors such treatment, said multiple different specialists work in HBOT, but any doctor can prescribe it.

“This would be a great opportunity for Manitoba,” said Zbitnew, an associate professor of anesthesiology at Memorial University in St. John’s and staff hyperbaric physician for Eastern Health in Newfoundland.

“Unfortunately, what has happened for provinces where there is not treatment available, it is extremely expensive (to have to travel to receive treatment),” he said, “It’s also disruptive to the psycho-social aspect of patients’ health to be away from friends, family, support network to achieve therapy.”

Zbitnew said doctors are using HBOT for increasing numbers of conditions. “For instance, we have seen an increase in referrals with sensorineural hearing loss being approved and more treatment of cancer therapy complications over the last 10 years.”

New hospitals around the world are including hyperbaric chambers in their construction. The just-completed $1.8-billion Calgary Cancer Centre has one.

It’s also a treatment protocol professional sports teams regularly deploy for their injured athletes. Connor McDavid, captain of the Edmonton Oilers, famously spent two hours a day in a hyperbaric chamber rehabing a knee injury in 2019 as part of an alternative to surgery.

At Prairie Hyperbarics, the treatments typically require sessions lasting one hour, 20 minutes, including four five-minute breaks.

With three chambers on hand — costing about $225,000 each — Hiebert figures the facility can handle 21 patients daily. It has also been constructed to allow a potential expansion to six chambers.

martin.cash@freepress.mb.ca