The Quebec government says school service centres and school boards should ensure that all schools are equipped with an automated external defibrillator (AED) over the course of the next academic year.
The Ministry of Education has allocated $3 million for the acquisition and installation of the devices in every school, from primary to secondary, as well as vocational and adult training centres.
Education Minister Bernard Drainville says an audit will be carried out to ensure they are installed.
“Accountability is important,” he said. “The money has already been sent. School service centres can tell their principals to go ahead and buy the defibrillator.”
In Quebec, only 50 per cent of elementary schools have such equipment. Meanwhile, 90 per cent of secondary schools do, mainly thanks to donations or crowdfunding campaigns.
WATCH | How to use a public defibrillator:
Advocates say the $2 million the province is spending on public defibrillators is money well spent, as they can save lives, especially when emergency services take too long to respond.
Dr. Paul Poirier has been fighting for the installation of AEDs for years. The cardiologist at the Institut universitaire de cardiologie et de pneumologie de Québec has organized campaigns himself to raise money.
He said it was time for Quebec to get more financially involved and ensure the equipment’s installation across the school network.
Cases of teenagers being saved at school thanks to a defibrillator have made headlines in recent years, but Drainville notes schools are also often frequented by adults for community sporting events and practices after hours.
“One evening, you might have a group of adults playing badminton or ball hockey, and then at some point, one of them goes into cardiac arrest. We want to be able to save them,” he said.
According to the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada, more than 60,000 cardiac arrests occur each year outside hospitals across the country. That’s one cardiac arrest every nine minutes. The survival rate is less than 10 per cent.
Marc-André Parenteau, the foundation’s senior adviser in government affairs and advocacy, says combining compressions with the use of a defibrillator can double a person’s chances of survival. What’s more, he notes the device is particularly easy to use.
“Just open the defibrillator and listen to what it tells you,” he said. “It will clearly tell you to attach electrodes, then analyze the victim’s condition and, if necessary, recommend a shock. If not, it’ll tell you to continue compressions.”
Training for Grade 5 students
Students in Grade 9 already receive CPR training in schools, but Dr. Poirier says a student in Grade 5 can operate a defibrillator and should be taught how.
“If you train people in Grade 5 and they’re recertified in Grade 9, that means you’ve got a whole generation of citizens trained twice in their lives,” he said.
Poirier and the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada say the next step is installing AEDs in all public places in Quebec. Many arenas, for example, still don’t have them.
Last year, Health Minister Christian Dubé gave the green light to a subsidy enabling the acquisition of 900 devices to be installed throughout Quebec over the next three years, ideally in places with long hours of operation and that are well-known and easily accessible.
Poirier says in addition to installation, the public must also be clearly informed of the location of the devices available to them.