President Fox to Accept Presto's Hyper Baric Clinic

(PRWEB) February 21, 2002

The Presto Clinic

Last year, as our group met with world-renowned Dr. Cuauhtémoc Sanchez, he shared his dream of having a hyper baric clinic in Mexico to treat many of the country’s sick and underprivileged. As he shared that dream, Presto’s president, Dr. Bobby Vassallo, also had a similar focus on Merida, Mexico, which holds the dubious honor of the highest incidence of cervical cancer and diabetes on the planet.

Educated at Johns Hopkins University, and now the director of the Hyperbaric Society of Mexico, Dr. Sanchez has for years been involved in extensive research and the treatment of hyper baric oxygen therapy. Dr. Sanchez currently operates a similar clinic at the Hospital del Pedregal in Mexico City, which cuts healing times for these diseases by months.

After hearing of Dr. Sanchez’s dream, Vassallo and fellow Presto employee, Nick Costas, seized the opportunity to purchase an 8-man hyper baric chamber from Aqualung/U. S. Divers Corporation of Santa Ana, California. AquaLung, founded by the famous father of Scuba diving, Jacques Cousteau, was relocating its facilities, and needed a new home for the chamber. And, they were very enthusiastic of the possibility of having their chamber used for the Presto Clinic in Merida, Mexico, where the governor of Yucatan had donated a new 4500 sq. ft. wing at Hospital de Horan in Merida. Ward Shigamoto, director of “Care under Pressure”, was in charge of the retrofit and updating of the chamber, which took over a year and in excess of $150,000, all coming from Presto’s employees..

No stranger to International aid, Vassallo spearheaded disaster relief in the infamous ’85 earthquake that killed thousands. OpTexas’ chairman, Vassallo and his group arrived in Mexico that first night and organized the deployment of millions in emergency medical relief that arrived in Mexico over that first two weeks. “American Airlines’ chairman, Bob Crandall, gave us as many DC-10s’ as we could fill, and we created a sky-bridge from Dallas to Mexico City”, said Vassallo. Vassallo’s group donated almost 20% of all emergency aid to Mexico for the disaster, but virtually 100% of the aid arriving the critical first week. He received citations from President Reagan, Mexico’s President Lopez-Portillo and Texas’ Governor White from these activities.

Vassallo has been involved in many other humanitarian projects in Mexico over the last 20 years as well, including a clinic in San Cristobal, Chiapas, and mobile dental clinics in Queretero and Juarez.

The chamber leaves for Mexico and a visit to "Los Pinos" and President Vicente Fox. After Mexico City, it will continue on to Merida where it will be put into service. The ribbon cutting will occur on March 4th by 1st Lady, Marta Sahagun Fox.

Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy is a means of providing pure oxygen to the tissues of your body. This increased oxygen delivery furthers your body’s ability to kill germs and increase healing. Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy is best known by the scuba diving community to treat Nitrogen narcosis, better known as decompression sickness or, “the bends.” Decompression sickness is treated by recompressing the body in a hyper baric chamber.

Each year new treatments are being recognized, such as the treatment of CO2 poisoning, arterial gas embolism, Aids, Cancer, Multiple Sclerosis, brain injuries, chronic non-healing wounds, strokes, skin graft failures, thermal burns and soft tissue infections. Russian doctors are the most experienced in this field, treating over 140 ailments with hyper baric chambers. Unfortunately, our FDA only recognizes 14.

The clinic site in Merida has a Medical University and a nursing school within a block of the Presto Clinic. An exchange student program for bilingual doctors from the U.S., interested in research of Hyperbaric Treatments for diabetics is also under way. The Yucatan has one of the highest per capita incidences of Diabetes in the world. The University of California-San Diego and Dr. Steven Edelman, the director of Diabetics and Endocrinology are involved in this program as well.