The Manitoba government hopes groundbreaking legislation requiring defibrillators be installed at high-traffic public spaces across the province will make the life-saving machines as common a sight as fire extinguishers in the future.
Premier Greg Selinger announced the types of saces that will be required to have an automated external defibrillator (AED) installed under the Defibrillator Public Access Act at a press conference Wednesday.
“When somebody has a cardiac arrest, and the proper signage is in place and the defibrillator is there… you can actually save somebody’s life,” explained the premier of the legislation, which passed with all-party support in 2011. “This legislation is leading the country… and as time goes along there’ll be a further review to see if other facilities would benefit by having these kinds of defibrillators installed on their premise.”
For the time being facilities like gyms, arenas, community centres, golf courses, schools and airports are among the public spaces that will be required to have an AED installed by the end of January 2014. The legislation also requires the machines to be registered with the Heart and Stroke Foundation and signage must be erected to identify the locations of the defibrillators.
An advisory group including paramedics, community groups and the Heart and Stroke Foundation chose the locations that will be required to have a machine.
“Time is tissue—for every minute of cardiac arrest chances of survival decrease by 10 percent,” said Chris Broughton, president of MGEU Local 911, which represents Winnipeg paramedics. “Simply waiting for help to arrive is waiting to long.”
To help the facilities meet the requirements the province is providing more than 1,000 free defibrillators, and have worked out a deal to make more machines available at a discount.