For the first time, the country’s leading medical offices and emergency service professionals have joined forces to up-skill Aussies in CPR asmore than 500 lives are unnecessarily lost to Sudden Cardiac Arrest (SCA) every week.
Paul Middleton, Clinical Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine at University of Sydney – who first founded THA along with Suzanne Davies, Head of Paramedicine at the University of Tasmania, and paramedic specialist Janelle White – says we need to make CPR knowledge the norm.
“Each year in Australia around 30,000 people experience SCA and only 9-10 per cent survive. Now, compare that figure with a city like Seattle in the US where over 60 per cent of people survive because three-quarters of their population are trained in CPR. In school, at University, in the workplace – most people learn CPR,” says Prof. Middleton.
“Administering CPR early can double or triple the chance of survival and just like in Seattle, our goal is to make surviving Sudden Cardiac Arrest the norm rather than the exception,” he said.
For the first time, experts from healthcare, academia, community, government and the private sector have come together to create an Australia where everyday people are trained and confident in providing CPR. This year, thousands of people are expected to take part in Take Heart Australia Day.
“Every year, up to 12,000 people of all ages are dying who really don’t have to. Aussies are great at a lot of things – like sport. But when it comes to knowing and performing CPR, the community can do a lot more to kick life-saving goals,” he said.
Take Heart Australia Day is a free event and schools, communities and individuals are all urged to take part, and learn to save a life.
www.takeheartaustralia.com.au
by Arrnott Olssen
Editor Rogue Homme
