Lobster Diving in Nicaragua

[URRACA]

To whom it may concern:

Sub Ocean Safety now has a decompression chamber on Corn Island. We believe that this chamber can be the foundation of sport divng tourism in this region, but this will not happen without everyone's support. It is a large effort to buy land, construct a multi-purpose clinic, rebuild and upgrade the chamber to tourism standards, train the medical personnel and set-up and manage the operating plan. The same situation applies to the chamber left behind in Pto. Cabezas.

The emergency work SOS did in Pto. Cabezas for 5 years was never supported by any organization, agency or industry and as a result, the chamber inevitably deteriorated. This will not happen again because we will have a fully funded operating budget before we re-open the chambers. Everything will be done up the highest standards, as necessary in the support of tourism and in the proper conduct of medical assistance.

Of course we will continue to accept emergency cases of decompression disease from the lobster and conch diving industry, but we need to be assured by the government that the employers of these injured divers can and will be held liable for reasonable medical and chamber fees. We must have legal ground to stand on for normal billing purposes. We want no profit, but any clinic SOS runs must be self-supporting, or it can not exist.

For five years SOS never collected one cordoba for it's chamber in Pto.Cabezas, while it saved many hundreds of divers from filling the streets with wheelchairs. This assistance is now over.

If there is no funding now for the chambers, I suggest that the lobster diving stopage be extended indefinately to avoid an epidemic of paralysis.

SOS can not be responsible for injured divers as we have warned all government agencies that there are no operating decompression chambers on Nicaragua's Atlantic Coast !!!

SOS will be glad to present a budget to the government once the proper agency is identified and communications are established. SOS can make both chambers operational on the Atlantic Coast, but only if it is done properly. I suggest that a meeting is called in Managua and I will be glad to consult.

Our SOS representative in Nicaragua is Juan Alejandro Samuel, with major directional support from Jorge Giraldez-Benard, a Nicaraguan citizen and member of the SOS Board of Directors.

Best regards for your continued development,

Robert Izdepski,
President,
Sub Ocean Safety
http://www.suboceansafety.org/