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Hospital League of Friends donate equipment - 16.06.04
Ysbyty Gwynedd’s League of Friends has presented the hospital with a special piece of equipment that helps patients suffering from breathing failure. The machine, called a BiPAP Synchrony, helps patients breathe through a tightly fitting face mask. The development of such machines in recent years has resulted in the death rate being halved and patients avoiding periods of ventilation in the intensive care unit as well as the complications that can arise with this form of treatment.
As a result patients often improve rapidly, stay in hospital for a shorter period and are less likely to need intensive care treatment.
Dr Grant Benfield, Consultant Physician in Respiratory and General Medicine at Ysbyty Gwynedd said: “The BiPAP machine is a type of ventilator which is used with patients who suffer from breathing failure as a result of severe chronic obstructive airways disease. This is a condition usually brought on by many years of smoking but can occasionally occur in those with longstanding asthma which in some instances leads to progressive and irreversible narrowing of the bronchial tubes.“
The patients are usually over 60 years of age and are frequently admitted to Ysbyty Gwynedd with acutely increased breathlessness due to failing lungs. Sometimes this is so severe that patients may well require ventilation on the intensive care unit.
Once the condition has deteriorated this far there is a significant mortality rate.
Dr Benfield said: “I am extremely grateful to the League of Friends for their generosity in purchasing these machines at a cost of £12,000. In an average year the hospital will admit about 650 patients suffering from severe breathing problems, and this new machine is already being used on the Respiratory Ward and is providing a real benefit to of those patients with severe breathing failure.”
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