Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent) | Oireachtas source

There are up to 10,000 community defibrillators in Ireland, according to the Irish Red Cross. Some of these are maintained by approximately 200 community first-responder schemes registered with the NAS This falls well short of the 275 first responder schemes registered with the NAS before the pandemic. The vast majority of these defibrillators have been funded by local communities or through government grants, yet there is no national database outlining their location, whether they are maintained, whether they are accessible or who is trained to use them.

For most patients a quick medical response time determines their chances of survival. For every minute that elapses following a cardiac arrest, a person’s chances of survival decreases by 7% to 10%. With the ambulance response-time target set at 19 minutes for a cardiac arrest, this is too late. Despite the failure to reach the response target times in over half of such emergencies, last year just 268 of the NAS first responders arrived at the scene of an emergency before the ambulance.

In a dispersed rural country like Ireland, we need local people to be at the scene of such emergencies within the first three to five minutes if people are to survive. While the National Ambulance Service community first-responder schemes are struggling to recruit volunteers, we are only scratching the surface with willing volunteers. For example, a pilot initiative supported by Roscommon LEADER partnership has identified and registered more than 480 first-responder volunteers in 40 community groups with 234 defibrillators, yet not one of them is on the national ambulance service system. The local community has rolled out an app that not only allows users to ring emergency services with location co-ordinates but also identifies where the nearest accessible defibrillator is located and enables the notification of the nearest six trained CPR responders. It then talks the person through performing CPR until those responders arrive. This is the type of community innovation, if supported, that can save lives.

In January, two children died in choking-related tragedies involving food within two days of each other. As parents, all our hearts go out to those families. Tragically choking and suffocation is a significant cause of unintentional death of children in Ireland. Incidents related to choking are quite frequent in children and in toddlers, in particular, when they are learning to eat. Toddlers are more likely to put anything that they can lay their hands on into their mouths and it is a big risk but the current law only requires one staff member present in a childcare facility to be trained in first aid for children. In the case of chocking, minutes can be the difference between life and death. There are many reports of the only trained staff member in a facility being unavailable or even freezing in such emergencies.

The former Minister for Health, James Reilly, stated, "I am very anxious that all people working directly with children in the early years sector have an appropriate Paediatric First Aid qualification." We are still waiting for that to happen. We must ensure all staff in childcare services undertake and complete a paediatric first-aid response course, funded by Tusla and the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth.

On average, there is a hospital admission related to anaphylaxis every day, with the highest number of admissions occurring among children and young adults, yet most schools and childcare facilities do not have an epinephrine autoinjector for emergency use. Even where they are in schools because a child has a particular allergy, staff are not trained to use them. It seems that we expect the child to self-administer with the EpiPen when experiencing anaphylaxis. Epinephrine autoinjectors should be provided in all schools and childcare facilities. All staff must be trained in the use of the specific EpiPens on their premises. I commend the motion to the House.

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