Hospital chiefs have been forced to mothball a hi-tech decompression chamber because they cannot afford its $1 million installation costs.

Managers at the King Edward VII Memorial Hospital splashed out $240,000 for the chamber at the beginning of April.

But the state-of-the-art equipment is still waiting to be shipped to Bermuda, lying in storage in a warehouse in Miami.

And it could be next spring before the chamber is finally in place.

Director of Emergency Services Dr. Edward Schultz said the project had run into delays because of the "huge cost'' of refitting a room to accommodate the chamber.

He would not confirm the exact cost of the renovation, which is understood to involve extensive re-piping, electrical and ventilation work.

But sources said the estimate for the job -- in a ground floor room in the hospital's new wing -- had run into hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Dr. Schultz said the hospital's old decompression chamber had been used eight times already this year.

The old chamber, which can only seat two at a time and has more outdated safety features, has been used for four scuba diving accidents and four cases of carbon monoxide poisoning.

And Dr. Schultz, who has been calling for the new technology for more than a year, said: "These hold-ups are extremely disappointing.

"But the installation costs are proving much higher than anticipated. We had hoped to have the chamber in place by the summer, when we are most likely to see scuba diving accidents.

"But now we are probably looking at between January and March before we will be able to install the new equipment.'' Hospital executives are now trying to find ways to save cash for the project, before booking the chamber to be shipped to Bermuda on the Somers Isles cargo ship.

The chamber was bought and paid for after technical advice from a senior consultant at Duke University in North Carolina.

It will be the centrepiece of a new-look hyperbaric suite, which will need extra support equipment and a larger bank of compressed air, should the chamber break down.

"These are large cylinders which have to be piped into the system,'' added Dr. Schultz. "So there has to be some demolition of the existing building to get the air intake in for the compressor.

"Some new copper tubing has to be bought, and from what I understand, the system will have to be piped up almost to the roof of the hospital so the air intake will not be contaminated.

"The actual chamber will be built out from the main building, from the western side of the new wing.'' The hyperbaric oxygen committee, headed by Dr. Carol Ferris, has already arranged urgent talks with fundraisers to discuss ways of moving the project forward.

"We obviously want to get the chamber installed as soon as possible,'' said Dr. Schultz. "We are somewhat disappointed that it's taken this long but we understand some of the delays because of the costs involved.

"It is not appropriate for me to comment on how the hospital should spend its money but I know there have been other more urgent projects, like completing the operation suite and the new laboratory and the maternity-child floor.

"They had to be completed to provide vital patient care.''