For years, Hennepin County Medical Center officials have been eager to replace their aging hyperbaric chamber, used to treat a variety of conditions, from carbon monoxide poisoning to radiation injuries.
But it's not easy coming up with $10 million for a highly specialized piece of medical hardware that's so large it needs its own building.
"You don't go down and buy one of these things at the local home improvement store," County Commissioner Mark Stenglein quipped.
Now the County Board appears ready to provide the final piece of funding needed to ensure that HCMC will have a new hyperbaric chamber by 2012.
This week, the board was expected to approve $4.45 million in county bonding for the project, which has already received $5 million in state bonding this year and $400,000 in federal funding.
The total pricetag for the chamber and its new home is $9.85 million.
Hyperbaric chambers have unique emergency and healing functions. Patients receive pure oxygen under pressurized conditions, which helps with a range of ailments from carbon monoxide poisoning (accounting for 82 percent of emergency treatments) to wounds that refuse to heal and tissue that's damaged by radiation treatments.
Divers who suffer from decompression illness, called "the bends," also turn to hyperbaric chambers for treatment.