Quebec asks all schools to install a cardiac defibrillator

During the next school year, all schools in Quebec should be equipped with a cardiac defibrillator. The Ministry of Education released a sum of $3 million, which was sent to school service centers for the acquisition and installation of devices in each school establishment, from primary to secondary, as well as the centers vocational training and those for adult training.

A check will be made. Accountability is important […] The money has already been sent. School service centers can tell their school principals to go ahead and purchase the defibrillator […] There is already a long way to go. We complete the network of defibrillators in public schools in Quebec.

In Quebec, 50% of elementary schools do not have such devices. If we now find them in 90% of secondary schools, it is mainly thanks to donations or crowdfunding campaigns.

Dr. Paul Poirier has been fighting for years for the installation of automated external defibrillators (AEDs). The cardiologist at the University Institute of Cardiology and Pneumology of Quebec himself organized campaigns to collect money.

He believes that it was time for Quebec to become more financially involved to complete the installation in a uniform manner throughout the school network.

SQ! Do you have time to wait for the guy S.Q. which is located at 15km arrives with his defibrillator? Or that the firefighters are coming? No, you don’t have time!”,”text”:”If you are in Saint-Loin-Loin, the closest defibrillator is in the SQ car! Do you have time to wait for the guy from the SQ who is 15km away to arrive with his defibrillator? Or that the firefighters are coming? No, you don’t have time!”}}”>If you are in Saint-Loin-Loin, the closest defibrillator is in the car of the S.Q.! Do you have time to wait for the guy S.Q. who is 15 km away arrives with his defibrillator? Or that the firefighters are coming? No, you don’t have time! he said.

Cases of teenagers saved at school thanks to a defibrillator have been publicized in recent years, but Minister Drainville also sees the need to install them for community sports activities. We can find ourselves one evening with adults playing badminton or hockey, then at a given moment, one of them goes into cardiorespiratory arrest. We want to be able to save them.

According to the Heart and Stroke FoundationStroke In Canada, more than 60,000 cardiac arrests occur each year outside of the country’s hospitals. There is a cardiac arrest every nine minutes. The survival rate would be less than 10%.

According to Marc-André Parenteau, the Foundation’s senior advisor in government affairs and advocacy, by combining cardiac massage and the use of a defibrillator, you can double a person’s chances of survival. In addition, he notes that the device is particularly easy to use.

We simply open the defibrillator and listen to what it tells us! He will clearly tell us to install electrodes, then he will analyze the victim’s condition and, if necessary, he will recommend a shock. Otherwise, he will tell us to continue the cardiac massage.

Train students of 5^e year using a defibrillator

eyear is able to use it! The only thing the machine doesn’t do is take your hand to do the cardiac massage. Otherwise, he tells him everything!”,”text”:”A 5th grade student can use it! The only thing the machine doesn’t do is take your hand to do the cardiac massage. Otherwise, he tells her everything!”}}”>A 5 year old student^e year is able to use it! The only thing the machine doesn’t do is take your hand to do the cardiac massage. Otherwise, he tells her everything! adds Dr. Paul Poirier. Third-year secondary school students are already receiving training in cardiopulmonary resuscitation.

If you form people in 5^e year and they are recertified in third secondary, that means that you have a whole generation of citizens trained twice in their life. When you train people in the community, you have a 40% increase in survival with the defibrillator in one year.

Dr. Poirier and the Heart and Stroke FoundationStroke of Canada now want the government to go even further. According to them, automated external defibrillators should be installed in all public places in Quebec. For example, many arenas still don’t have one.

At the start of the year, Minister of Health Christian Dubé also gave the green light to a subsidy allowing the acquisition of 900 devices installed throughout Quebec over the next three years, particularly in banks and credit unions.

We have asked for a law to be introduced on access to defibrillation so that they can be installed in all busy places with thresholds to be determined. It would be standardizedexplains Marc-André Parenteau.

Dr. Poirier insists on one thing: beyond the installation, it will also be necessary to clearly indicate to the public where the devices at their disposal are located.

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