The charity behind the island’s newly refurbished hyperbaric oxygen therapy centre, says it has been forced to reject a Department of Health and Social Care funding offer it describes as “clearly not feasible or sustainable” for providing a 24/7 emergency service for diving casualties.
In an open letter to the Health Minister Claire Christian, Vice-Chair Ken Kinrade said the Department had offered £90,000 per year, a figure the charity says was based only on the historic cost of sending two diving casualties to England.
The letter states the sum “takes no account of the infrastructure costs involved in providing such a service” and falls far short of what is required to run a round‑the‑clock emergency chamber.
State of The Art Facility
HBOT IOM has spent £1.5 million over seven years creating what it describes as a “state‑of‑the‑art” facility that meets care standards introduced under the Regulation of Care Act 2013.
The charity says achieving registration with the Department earlier this year came at “significant cost”, undertaken specifically to qualify for financial support.
It argues that the Department’s offer mirrors the level of support given to the previous hyperbaric charity between 2003 and 2018, despite inflation rising 93% and regulatory requirements increasing. It says inadequate funding was one of the reasons the former service closed.
HBOT IOM says that with appropriate support for emergency diving cases, it would have provided up to 200 routine treatments per year at no charge, covering 12 additional internationally recognised medical indications.
These include carbon monoxide poisoning, necrotising infections, crush injuries, radiation tissue damage and diabetic foot ulcers, conditions the charity says it has successfully treated for decades.
Kinrade said the Department’s position, that there is “insufficient evidence” to support commissioning wider treatments, will come as “a major surprise to the many thousands of patients who were successfully treated” before 2018.
The charity is now calling on former patients or their families to submit anonymised testimonials to demonstrate the effectiveness of treatment.
Relinquish Registration
The charity warns that without a revised offer, it may relinquish its registration and move to a contribution‑based model for non‑emergency treatments.
As an unregulated service, it would be unable to treat diving casualties, meaning anyone suffering decompression illness would need to be flown to England, a delay the charity says could be “catastrophic” for patients.
HBOT IOM says it will continue working with the Department to seek a review of the decision, but warns that producing the clinical evidence required under the Department’s new governance framework will take time.
In the meantime, it says the Manx public, who have already invested £1.5 million in the facility, may now have to pay to use it.
The charity says it hopes the new administration will reconsider the funding level and enable the service to deliver “life‑saving and life‑improving” treatment for the island.
You can read the full letter here:
