The Hyperbaric oxygen therapy unit that has been set up at Grace Kennett Foundation Hospital in Madurai.
| Photo Credit: G. Moorthy
A Hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT) unit has been established at Grace Kennett Foundation Hospital (GKFH) to offer advanced oxygen therapy for diabetic wounds, burns and complex healing challenges.Samuel Dodd, Medical Superintendent and Burns Surgeon, GKFH, says, “It is a specialised medical treatment in which a patient breathes 100% pure oxygen while lying inside a pressurised chamber. This increased pressure allows oxygen to dissolve directly into blood and body fluids at levels that are far higher than normal, thus super-oxygenating the damaged tissue and accelerating the body’s natural healing process.”The GKFH is one of the few facilities in South India that offers advanced skin grafting and burn treatment. In the past five years, the hospital’s skin bank has done 135 retrievals. One of the top private hospitals having active skin banks, it now serves as a nodal point for recipients in hospitals like CMC Vellore and hospitals in Bhubaneswar and Thiruvananthapuram.The HBOT unit will be part and parcel of the treatment for those undergoing skin grafting and burn surgery at the GKFH, and it will also benefit patients across Madurai and neighbouring districts suffering from non-healing diabetic foot ulcers, severe burns, chronic bone and soft-tissue infections, crush injuries, radiation injuries, sudden hearing loss, and select complications arising from cancer treatment, among other indications.A treatment session is commonly called a ‘dive’ lasting between 90 to 120 minutes. The HBOT is purely active healing therapy, which is done while a patient listens to music or reads a novel.Dr. Dodd says the unit has already been used to treat its first patient — a case of necrotizing fasciitis of the lower limb — as pre-operative preparation for split skin grafting. “It is an early demonstration of the therapy’s clinical value at the GKFH,” he adds. Published - July 23, 2026 08:43 pm IST
