In the southeast of Spain, in Cartagena specifically, you can find the largest hyperbaric chamber in Europe. Few people know about it and know what it is used for. Let us tell you about it.
Hyperbaric Medicine is a specialty that uses the combination of increased atmospheric pressure and oxygenation of patients. It consists of breathing pure oxygen inside a chamber at a higher pressure than the atmospheric pressure. In this way, high oxygen pressures are obtained in the body, which has beneficial effects.
The list of applications for this treatment is very extensive. Here are some examples: arterial insufficiency, severe anaemia, varicose ulcers, gangrene and amputations, some types of necrosis, burns and grafts, smoke inhalation and gas poisoning, sudden deafness, certain infections, polytrauma with skin flaps, complicated fractures, cases of frostbite, neurological diseases, arthritis, osteoarthritis, fibromyalgia and it even mitigates the side effects of radiotherapy. Aside from that, it has been shown that surgical operations performed in hyperbaric chambers entail fewer complication, have higher success rates and shorten the recovery period.
Hyperbaric medicine in Spain began in 1923, when the Spanish Navy acquired a multi-seat chamber for the treatment of decompression illnesses in civilian and military diving courses. In the 1960s, hyperbaric medicine accelerated its development worldwide and the Spanish Navy began to have hyperbaric chambers and specialised personnel which were gradually implemented in military ports such as Cadiz, Ferrol and Cartagena.
This last base was the scene of a project as ambitious as it was peculiar. The commander and military doctor Antonio de Lara « operated » there. At the beginning of the 70s, back in Spain after a long training period in the United States, he learnt that the neighbouring refinery was going to dismantle one of its chimneys.
Familiar with the technical characteristics of this branch of medicine, he saw an opportunity to design an ambitious hyperbaric chamber for civil use. It was to be the first in Spain and the largest in Europe. The challenge was colossal on a technical and economic level. To achieve it, he came up with a brilliantly pragmatic idea of contacting, convincing and uniting multiple local parties: authorities from the Navy, local politicians, shipbuilders, refinery, university, banks, local companies, … He managed to get all these parties to join together altruistically in this unique project.
Two sections of the chimney were conditioned and transported by truck to the Santo y Real Hospital de la Caridad (better known as the hospital de Los Pinos). Two years later, a 32-metre-long hyperbaric chamber with the capacity for 64 people began to operate. An improbable puzzle made with refinery products, ships and submarines that continues to cure people even now.
Currently, in Spain there are hyperbaric chambers spread throughout the country.
