By Jasmine Solomonescu
Residents of Ottawa-Carleton can take heart in the knowledge that their chances of surviving the most common form of cardiac arrest may soon double.
In August, regional council approved the purchase of 337 defibrillators – devices that deliver life-saving jolts of electricity to hearts that have stopped beating. By spring, the region plans to deploy the machines in police cruisers and public places such as swimming pools, nursing homes, and community centres.
The region has not decided which places will get the devices, but the Dalhousie, McNabb and Jack Purcell community centres are among the sites it is considering.
Regional Coun. Diane Holmes says she strongly supports having the machines in Centretown because “the ability for many people to use the defibrillators will greatly increase people’s safety.”
A defibrillator is the only effective treatment for the most common kind of heart failure, ventricular fibrillation, in which the bottom chamber of the heart quivers and cannot pump blood.
Once this happens, chances of survival drop by 10 per cent a minute.
A defibrillator is an automated machine connected to a set of adhesive chest pads, housed in a box the size of a bulky laptop computer. An automated voice prompts the user to stick the pads to the victim’s naked chest, press a button, and stand back as it administers an electric shock to reset the heart.
The $2-million purchase of defibrillators is part of the region’s plan to improve ambulance services, which the new City of Ottawa is to take over from the devices: more defibrillators installed around city.
The medical director of the new city, Dr. Justin Maloney, says the machines could help double the region’s survival rate for ventricular fibrillation. The rate now stands at a grim 11 per cent, compared with about 19 per cent in Hamilton and 24 per cent in Calgary.
Defibrillation training takes about four hours, and Maloney says staff at locations that receive the machines will require a doctor’s authorization to use them.
Defibrillators have already begun appearing in local workplaces including Alcatel and Nortel Networks, which purchased the equipment on their own initiative. The YMCA-YWCA of Ottawa-Carleton, the Corel Centre and the House of Commons have also acquired them.
The region first installed defibrillators in ambulances about 10 years ago, and local fire departments began using them in 1993.
“We’re working towards (having) these devices literally as readily available as fire extinguishers,” says Doug Odney, who helped implement some 100 public defibrillators in Calgary about six years ago and came to Ottawa last month to get the region’s program off the ground.
Of the 337 machines on the way, 135 are intended for police cars and the remaining 202 for municipal sites.
In combination with cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and improved ambulance response times, the new defibrillators could help save 18 to 20 more lives each year, says Maloney.
She adds that most of the 471 deaths from cardiac arrest in the region last year involved ventricular fibrillation.
A basic machine costs about $5,000, but the Region has struck a deal with a supplier, Medtronic, to buy the machines at around $4,000 each.
Private organizations can take advantage of the special price until Jan. 15, 2001.