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Rosie

There’s a Wallaby in our chamber!
Rosie sits patiently in the chamber waiting for her treatment to start.

It may be a world first, certainly a Nelson first, for a non-rugby playing Wallaby to have hyperbaric oxygen treatment!

Rosie the Wallaby, who belongs to vet Mana Stratton, has been pioneering HBOT for a particularly nasty bacterial infection in the bone of her lower jaw.

Rosie has completed a large number of treatments and is so relaxed about the whole procedure that she often hops into the chamber unassisted before the operator is ready!

A verbal consultation with Dr Tim Ewer at Mapua Health, resulted in the recommendation of Hperbaric Oxygen treatment for this particularly aggressive bacterial infection. Tim also recommended that it was best to do more, rather than less, treatments.

Rosie has become a mascot of the clinic and everyone loves it when she is hopping about the prep room peering into things. On one occasion Rosie was still in the clinic after closing time, having just come out of the chamber, she was hopping about while Mana was helping with a couple of stitch-ups and was caught on the waiting room seats peering out through the venetian blinds at the cars driving past – that must have made a few drivers do a double-take!!

So has the chamber helped Rosie?

Well she has been taken off all antibiotics, her appetite has increased and she is putting on weight. She has also become nosy and interested in life again. The infection has subsided as far as we can tell – and she will be coming in for more x-rays to determine clinical success.