Terry Brennan (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Ba mhaith liom fáilte a chur roimh an Aire Stáit ar ais go dtí an Teach. I acknowledge the presence of members of the Irish Heart Foundation in the Gallery and I welcome them to the House. I am glad to see the Irish Heart Foundation strongly supporting the Public Health (Availability of Defibrillators) Bill. If the legislation is passed, it can provide a powerful legislative platform to ensure that many more lives are saved through bystander CPR and early defibrillation. About half of the 10,000 deaths from cardiovascular disease in Ireland each year are due to sudden cardiac death and 70% of these occur outside hospital, as other Senators stated. CPR training is a major priority of the Irish Heart Foundation, which I welcome, and I understand the foundation oversees the training of approximately 60,000 people each year. I commend the foundation on the initiative. The programme has helped to produce a survival rate, when resuscitation is attempted, of 6.5% according to the latest available research from Ireland’s national out-of-hospital cardiac arrest register. Some 133 lives were saved out of 2,033 patients for whom data were available over a four-year period to the end of 2011.

However, international comparisons show that higher rates could be achieved, particularly when the equipment and training are in place to ensure early recognition, early CPR and early defibrillation. For example, survival rates in Norway, Sweden and Denmark are 13%, 11% and 9%, respectively, while higher rates have been recorded in the Netherlands, where research over a three-year period shows survival rates of 49.6% for patients treated with an onsite defibrillator, compared with 14.3% when no defibrillator was available. We are a long way behind.

The presence of defibrillators in communities creates demand for CPR training that otherwise might not exist. Where training is inadequate or non-existent, as is often the case, defibrillators will not be used and therefore can play no life-saving role. Such situations would concern me. In my last employment, we had regular training and reminders about CPR, which was an advantage.

Legislating to provide more defibrillators is a vital prerequisite to increasing the life-saving role of CPR but this can only be maximised with proper regulation to ensure adequate ongoing training. I cannot emphasise it enough. Whether defibrillators or CPR, the wider population must be able to use them. I am convinced that widening the availability of defibrillators in tandem with certified CPR training will result in considerably more lives being saved in communities across the length and breadth of Ireland. International experts estimate that in optimal conditions, where there is high availability of defibrillators and a high level of people trained in CPR, the survival rate when resuscitation is attempted could be as high as 40%.

Each year there are 5,000 to 6,000 cardiac arrests in Ireland. The report of the task force on sudden cardiac death recommends a person should receive defibrillation within three to five minutes of the arrest occurring. I was at a wedding eight or nine years ago and saw cardiac arrest in a young man of 55 years of age, who was slim and did not drink or smoke. The man was a drummer in a pipe band and the bride was a drummer in a band in Canada, as well as being a nurse. She had friends who were doctors in Northern Ireland and Canada attending the wedding. He hit the ground with the back of his head. There was no sign and someone tore his shirt off and called for an ambulance. Within ten seconds, there were six doctors around the young man. He was lucky because if it happened in a hospital corridor, he would not have had attention so quickly. The ambulance took 20 minutes. I felt for a pulse but he had none for 20 minutes. When the defibrillator was introduced, it transformed the situation.

I went to see him in the hospital in Newry and I could not believe that a half an hour later he was sitting up in bed. Training in CPR is important. If nobody at the wedding had been able to perform CPR he would have died, and he realises that. I cannot emphasise enough the importance of training.

There are defibrillators at different locations in the Leinster House complex and 25 staff are trained to use them, although I have not seen them. I do not frequent the bar but somebody said there was one there. It would be no harm to have training on a continual basis. I commend Senator Quinn. This is a marvellous Bill on which he has done a great deal of work. It is a sensible Bill and both he and Senator Crown have my full support.