THE University of the West Indies Development & Endowment Fund (UWIDEF), in partnership with FLOW, donated a well-needed glidescope machine valued at J$2.4 million to the University Hospital of the West Indies’ (UHWI’s) anaesthesia department.

UWIDEF’s Executive Director Carla Seaga noted that her organisation was pleased that it has been able to sustain an annual gift to the hospital due to FLOW’s support.

Meanwhile, UWIDEF’s board member Karl Wright, who was also present at the ceremony, explained that the equipment was funded with returns yielded from an invested contribution FLOW made to UWIDEF in 1995.

Returns yielded from the investment have been used over the years to support the hospital with replacing obsolete equipment and improving patient care delivery, a news release from UWIDEF stated.

The glidescope machine was handed over last Thursday.

Dr Hyacinth Harding-Goldson, head of the Department of Anaesthesia & Intensive Care, said her team and the students were extremely grateful for the equipment.

She stated that the glidescope was needed not only for health-care delivery, but to train medical students as “failure to properly place this tube in the correct location or in a short period of time can result in injury to the patient’s lungs and low oxygen levels causing damage to the brain, heart or other organs and even death”.

“In patients with cervical spinal cord disease or injury, often seen in motor vehicle crashes, attempts at placement of the breathing tube using conventional laryngoscopes may damage the spinal cord further and produce permanent paralysis,” Harding-Goldson added.

She further stated that the glidescope machine consists of video laryngoscopy, which “utilises fibre-optic technology to place a small camera on a device that is inserted into the patient’s mouth and project the image onto a screen. This allows the user to look around ‘corners’ in the patient’s mouth to quickly and safely allow correct tube placement”.

“Video laryngoscopy represents a major advancement in the safe placement of a patient’s breathing tube with improved visualisation of the opening of the windpipe, improved success rates and decreased time to intubate when compared with conventional direct laryngoscopy. Video laryngoscopy has thus become the standard of care internationally. By acquiring this vital piece of equipment, the doctors at the UHWI can now not only care for their patients with increased safety but can provide training of anaesthetists and intensivists in this life-saving technique.”