Cardiac Arrests in Victoria, By Mrs Vera West
At present 20 percent more sudden cardia arrests are occurring in Victoria than occurred five years ago. Tragically, of these cardiac arrest, 95 percent of the people are dying, according to data from Ambulance Victoria. The response to this has been for various groups to lobby for defibrillators within 400 metres of every resident and as well, to provide free CPR training in postcodes which the highest occurrence of cardiac arrest.
I have no objection to having a widespread supply of defibrillators, a strategy that no doubt would save lives. But the biggest question is why has this explosion of cardiac issues occurred in the first place, and coincidently corresponding to the Covid vax rollout? Given that heart issues are one of the key adverse effects, one would have hoped that some awareness of the vax injury issue might have surfaced in the media, but, no.
"Twenty per cent more sudden cardiac arrests are occurring in Victoria than five years ago – and startlingly, more than 95 per cent of patients are dying.
Of the 7830 people whose hearts stopped beating due to this condition in 2022/23, just 388 survived, the latest Ambulance Victoria figures reveal.
And only 139 were treated by an automated external defibrillator (AED) – an action that has been shown to significantly boost survival rates if applied within the first two to five minutes.
The number of sudden cardiac arrests in Victoria has increased every year since 2018/19, when 6519 were recorded.
The survival rate had also fallen by almost 1 per cent in that time, meaning "as more incidents occur annually, fewer people are returning home", St John Ambulance Victoria chief executive Gordon Botwright said.
"This is absolutely deadly, it's indiscriminate and it usually occurs without any warning or notice," he said.
"But the more people that are able to perform CPR, and greater access to public defibrillators can significantly turn around the survival rate.
"If we could just shift the dial from 5 per cent survival to 15 per cent, we could save nearly 800 additional lives here in Victoria. That's an astounding number."
SJAV is urging the Victorian government to commit $1.6m towards its Defib In Your Street initiative – which is working to install always-accessible defibrillators within 400m of every resident and provide free CPR training in postcodes with the highest occurrence of cardiac arrest.
Mr Botwright said this funding would allow the charity to expand the lifesaving program to the 10 worst-affected suburbs, which alarmingly accounted for 10 per cent of all cardiac arrest cases in Victoria.
Defib In Your Street has already installed 29 AEDs and CPR trained 1063 residents in Reservoir, and is halfway to its goal of rolling out 30 defibs in St Albans.
SJAV will next work to install a further 30 defibs and train 5000 residents in postcode 3020, comprising Sunshine and Albion.
The approach has been backed by Latrobe University researchers, who found Defib In Your Street had reduced the average walking time to the nearest defib from 5.87 minutes to 3.55 minutes in Reservoir.
Mr Botwright said this was significant given the chance of surviving a sudden loss of heart function declined by 10 per cent every minute without defibrillation.
He also called on the Victorian government to mandate the installation of AEDs in all public buildings – including schools, sporting facilities, jails and theatres – as had occurred in South Australia.
"It's terrible to talk about the cost of a life, but we are talking billions of dollars of impact on the Victorian economy," he said.
"If just some of that money was passed into programs to help raise community resilience by more CPR and first aid training and more defibrillators, that would be a fantastic outcome for Victorians."
A Victorian government spokesperson sad: "Victoria has the best cardiac arrest survival rate in Australia, and among the best in the world, thanks in part to the more than 13,200 AEDs registered throughout the state". Of these, 6700 are in public places.
They did not respond to questions posed by the Herald Sun on whether the government would consider funding Defib in Your Street or mandating defibs in public buildings.
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