Central Taranaki trust looks out for hearts in the community with new project

Central Taranaki Safe Community Trust community safety manager Di Gleeson says she'd like all AEDS in central Taranaki to be 24-hour accessible, like the one at the Stratford A&P Show office on Flint Rd. Photo / Alyssa Smith

Central Taranaki Safe Community Trust (CTSCT) and St John are working together to protect hearts in the community.

CTSCT community safety manager Di Gleeson says the new three-year programme called Save a Life will add more automated external defibrillators (AEDs) into the area and teach people how to use them.

“We’re working together to keep our community safe and create community connection. We want every person to be trained in CPR and how to use an AED and ensure the machines are accessible in the central Taranaki region.”

The Save a Life programme started in September 2023 and Di says since then 131 people have attended a course.

At the sessions participants learn basic CPR and how to use an AED.

“We understand it can be quite uncomfortable performing mouth-to-mouth on the mannequins so that doesn’t happen at the course. We teach people CPR and show them how to use a defibrillator. This training makes people familiar with the machine so they know what to do if they ever need to use one.”

She says as well as teaching people how to use an AED, the project will put more of the machines in the community.

“The idea is to have so many that people are no more than three minutes walk away from an AED. With funding from the Department of Medicine Charitable Trust, we will add more machines to the community and the halls in our rural communities. Regardless of where anyone is, they know where to find one.”

Di says all of the machines will be 24-hour accessible.

“We want to upgrade the ones already in the community to 24-hour access. All the new ones will have 24-hour access. You can never predict when you’ll need one. To be safe we want them all to be accessible at any time of the day or night.”

She says the first step is ensuring everyone knows how to save a life.

“Our next intake for courses is in February so bring a friend and learn together. We can also facilitate a group by coming to them if it’s a suitable location. Knowing how to save a life is important so come to one of the sessions.”