Scientists invent life-saving oxygen injection to keep people alive without breathing

Scientist invents way to keep people alive even when they can't breathe by injecting oxygen into the blood
By DAILY MAIL
June 29, 2012

Scientists have discovered a new way of administering oxygen to the blood which could allow people to stay alive without breathing.

The amazing breakthrough could change medical science by eliminating the need to keep patients breathing during complex operations.

The procedure, which works by injecting oxygen molecules enclosed in fatty molecules directly into the bloodstream, could grant people an extra 30 minutes of life when they cannot breathe.

Blood: Injecting oxygen into the bloodstream could help keep patients who cannot breathe alive while undergoing medical treatment. Credit: DailyMail

John Kheir, of the Boston Children's Hospital, was inspired to begin his groundbreaking research after he experienced a patient's tragic death, according to ScienceDaily.

[...]

Much of Dr Kheir's research therefore involved finding a substance which could enclose the oxygen and allow it to be suspended in a liquid for injection into the body.

He found that using fatty molecules called lipids was the best way to retain oxygen after using sound waves to trap the two substances together into particles so small they can only be seen with the help of a microscope.

The particles were then made up into a liquid which is very heavily oxygenated - carrying 'three to four times the oxygen content of our own red blood cells', according to Dr Kheir.

When the liquid solution was injected into animals with abnormally low levels of blood oxygen, their blood returned to normal within seconds.

And when it was administered to animals which were entirely unable to breathe, they remained alive for 15 minutes and were at lower risk of health complications.

When used on humans, the oxygen could probably last for up to 30 minutes, though injecting it for any longer could damage the patient's blood.

'This is a short-term oxygen substitute - a way to safely inject oxygen gas to support patients during a critical few minutes,' Dr Kheir said.

He added that he thought the technique could become routine for doctors and parademics dealing with emergency situations.

'Eventually, this could be stored in syringes on every code cart in a hospital, ambulance or transport helicopter to help stabilise patients who are having difficulty breathing,' he said.

Read more:
ScienceDaily: Injecting life-saving oxygen into a vein

A $44 million hospital bill for treating pneumonia?

Must have been the worst case pneumonia ever encountered huh?


Hospital bills man $44 million for treating his pneumonia
by: Jonathan Benson, staff writer
NaturalNews
Friday, January 20, 2012

(NaturalNews) Anyone who has ever looked at an itemized hospital or doctor bill already knows just how absurdly inflated the nation's healthcare costs truly are. But when 28-year-old Alexis Rodriguez from New York recently received a bill from Bronx - Lebanon Hospital for $44 million, something told him that pneumonia treatment does not actually cost this much -- at least not yet.

The New York Daily News (NYDN) reports that Rodriguez and a number of other patients from Bronx - Lebanon Hospital recently received hospital bills totaling in the millions of dollars for procedures that obviously should have been only a small fraction of that amount. The hospital had treated Rodriguez for pneumonia, for instance, upon which he received a bill for $44,776,587.

The obvious error was apparently the result of invoice discrepancies made by PHY Services, the billing firm that services Bronx - Lebanon Hospital. Instead of putting the actual amount due in the total box, a PHY employee allegedly put in the lengthy invoice number instead, which caused a lot of panic among patients that received the faulty bills.

"I almost had an asthma attack," said Rodriguez to NYDN following the incident. "It was a big error. I think they should have somebody look over the bills before they send them out. I understand manpower may be down, but to send out a lot of bills with numbers that big -- someone could have had a heart attack."

Rodriguez has a point. But this incident is not the first time that a hospital has issued a bill totaling in the millions of dollars. Last summer, Tampa General Hospital in Florida filed a $9.2 million claim against the estate of a patient who spent five years in the hospital before eventually dying. And this $9.2 million charge was not a mistake -- the hospital actually believed it was entitled to this amount for services provided (http://www.naturalnews.com/033157_hospital_bills.html).

According to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ)'s Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project, the average cost for a hospital stay for "all diagnoses" is $9,200. A heart attack will cost a patient an average of $18,200, according to data, while a heart valve disorder will cost a whopping $36,700 (http://www.ahrq.gov/data/hcup/).

Sources for this article include:
http://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/health/44-million-bill-bronx-lebanon-hospital-article-1.1006744

Miracle of the human body & the love of medicine

image: zazzle

Whenever the art of medicine is loved, there also is a love of humanity - HIPPOCRATES

Long back, when each of us was a child, in some stillness, some dark night it may have been, he discovered this thing that beats in his chest, this fact. It would be years, if ever before he could think such a thought as that this was just a muscle contracting. He put his hand there...This engine was in him. - GUSTAV ECKSTEIN, The Body Has a Head