Dr. Kevin Moss has no idea of the number of people who need treatment from a pulmonologist. However, the country's lone pulmonary and critical care medicine specialist, who deals with treating a range of lung diseases including, but not limited to, lung cancers and chronic obstructive lung diseases such as asthma, pneumonias and scarring on the lungs, said he knows the number is high.

Moss, an internist and pulmonologist intensivist, returned home in 2000. He practiced out of The Bahamas Heart Centre for 13 years, but realized a dream to own and operate his own practice. The Pulmonary & Critical Care Institute Bahamas, that also houses the Bahamas Sleep Centre, has been open for a month in Kevia House, which is located on Montgomery Street, Palmdale. The center is named after Moss' daughter and was officially opened on Friday. It's a center the pulmonologist said is critical to the country.

The people who would seek out his services include those with symptoms such as coughing, shortness of breath, chest tightness, wheezing, chest pains, or any difficulty breathing. Moss said a patient may at first see a general practitioner (GP) for her symptoms, but when the problems aren't being resolved by the GP the patient is usually refered to the pulmonologist.

"We have people with a lot of respiratory problems like asthma, including pneumonias, scarring on the lungs, cancer of the lungs, so it's very important to have individuals who are specialized in treating diseases of the lungs," said Moss.

"Anytime an individual is having problems with their breathing, whatever aspect of it, I help them to solve the problem and hopefully return back to their baseline or improve."

The Pulmonary & Critical Care Institute is a day center, but it also offers two sleep labs. Moss practices sleep medicine too and treats patients with sleep-disordered breathing problems.

"We bring them into the lab and test to see if they have sleep apnea or what kind of breathing difficulty they may be having at nights. We also look at parasomnia [abnormal things that can happen to people while they sleep, apart from sleep apnea] because some people sleep walk," he said.

"They get up at night not aware of what's happening, go to the refrigerator, go to the bathroom and they're still asleep. They have no recollection of it. We can study things like that as well as restless leg syndrome [a condition in which the legs feel extremely uncomfortable, typically in the evenings while a person is sitting or laying down and makes them feel like getting up and moving around]; patients who have narcolepsy [a chronic brain disorder that involves poor control of sleep-wake cycles] where they just drop and fall asleep. We can study all those things in the sleep lab."

As a critical care specialist, Moss also sees patients who are sick enough to be in intensive care.

Dr. Dionne Dames-Rahming, an internal medicine specialist, is Moss' associate at the Pulmonary & Critical Care Institute.

"It was always my dream to be in my own facility, and provide the level of care that I know I'm capable of - which is excellence and service, kind, compassionate care," said Moss.

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