Intermittent noninvasive ventilation at San José Hospital in Chile: report of a German donation.

Home mechanical ventilation is currently expanding in Chile, but its application along the country is hindered by financial and geographical reasons. In 2006 the San José Hospital in Santiago de Chile developed a non-invasive ventilation (NIV) center as a strategy to overcome the limitations of ventilator availability from public resources. Since then, this center provides intermittent diurnal sessions of NIV to patients with chronic hypercapnic respiratory failure. In 2013, a collaboratory work between the Chilean doctors, the German Interdisciplinary Society of Home Mechanical Ventilation (DIGAB = Deutsche Interdisziplinäre Gesellschaft für Außerklinische Beatmung) and the German non-invasive (NIV) home care provider "Heinen und Löwenstein" organized a donation of 100 second-hand ventilators (BiPAP Synchrony; Respironics, USA) including masks and tubing systems, which were provided by Heinen und Löwenstein. The ventilator devices arrived in Santiago in January 2014. Since then, the following initiatives have been launched: 1) the establishment of a domiciliary mechanical ventilation program independent of governmental founding, 2) NIV setting-titration, 3) renewal of ventilators at the hospital's intermittent NIV unit. Future goals are the establishment of a rehabilitation unit with concomitant NIV therapy and a clinical research program. Therefore, the German donation of ventilators and equipment has a reported impact on the development of NIV in Chile.