Defibrillators to create a 'heart-friendly' city

By ELIZABETH BINNING

Heart-starting machines are to be placed around Hamilton so residents can save lives while ambulance officers are still battling their way to the scene.

Hamilton is the first city in the country to make defibrillation machines, which restart the heart with an electrical shock, available to the public.

If successful the trial could be extended around New Zealand.

St John Ambulance health services manager Kim Osborne said up to 15 machines would be placed around the city, in shopping malls, public gardens, libraries and sports venues. The number would depend on the success of a fundraising campaign.

People working at those locations will be trained by St Johns staff so they can immediately help victims of cardiac arrest.

Ms Osborne said the machines, a simplified version of what paramedics carried in ambulances, were safe and easy to use, even without training.

They were widely used overseas.

In New Zealand defibrillators are carried on some fire engines and at airports, but are not yet available to the public.

St John's aim is to create "heart-friendly cities" where access to defibrillators is easy when necessary.

Waikato Hospital cardiologist Clyde Wade said there had been an increasing number of successful resuscitations by members of the public in recent years.

In most of those cases, people were kept alive by CPR, which pumps blood around the body and delivers oxygen to the brain until a paramedic can arrive with a defibrillator and shock the heart back into working on its own.

St John Ambulance staff said that although CPR was an important tool, it had only a 1 per cent chance of restarting a heart. The odds of success increased to 60 per cent when a defibrillator was used.

Ms Osborne said the machines, which cost $6000 each, would not replace ambulance officers.

They simply increased the odds of survival in the first few vital minutes when paramedics were still trying to get through traffic or were stuck at another job.

"For every minute that a person is left their chances of survival diminish by as much as 10 per cent."

The machines will not work on a person whose heart is already beating.

Ms Osborne said the aim was to have the Hamilton defibrillators installed early next year.