‘All schools should have access to defibrillators’ – McKevitt

SDLP Spokesperson for Culture, Arts and Leisure Karen McKevitt called upon the Minister of Education to make contact with the World Police and Fire Games (WPFG) 2013 body regarding distribution of mobile defibrillators to local schools.

During Question Time in the Northern Ireland Assembly McKevitt asked the Minister whether all schools have access to a defibrillator and defibrillator training.

Whilst the Minister did not have this information at hand he took the MLA’s suggestion and agreed to liaise with the WPFG 2013 body who announced its intentions to donate 45 mobile defibrillators to schools across the North of Ireland.

McKevitt said, “These are life-saving machines and I look forward to the Minister of Education providing an update on his contact with WPFG 2013 body. The mobile defibrillators are used to ‘shock’ a victim of a cardiac arrest back to the normal rhythm increasing survival rates to over 70% compared with less than 5% with just CPR alone.

The SDLP MLA added, “Unfortunately in recent times there have been instances of very sad deaths so I look forward to seeing the delivery of these defibrillators to local schools. I believe it would be worthwhile ensuring that every school has access to a defibrillator and this is something I will continue to call for.”

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Posted by Newry Times News on Sep 19 2013. Filed under Community. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry