This article is from page 17 of the 2006-10-10 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 17 JPG
THE Health Service Executive in the mid west has denied that it has refused to replace “obsolete cardiac equipment”, but has confirmed that it has some defibrillators which cannot be upgraded to meet the recent changes to international resuscitation guidelines.
Emergency medical technicians (EMTs) in the mid west have claimed that defibrillators on board ambulances across the mid west are up to ten years old and are not in line with the recently introduced codes from the International Liaison Committee on Resuscitation (ILCOR).
“All these defibrillators need to be replaced because the software in the older machines cannot be upgraded to meet the new guidelines. As it is, if we are shocking a patient, we have to switch off the defibrillator in the middle of the treatment and start it up again. It is a disgrace,” one EMT has claimed.
We know that our colleagues in Cork, Dublin and the south east all have the most up to date defibrillators, but with the machines we have, we can’t provide optimal care to the patient,” another medic said.
Staff accept that the money is not available in the mid west but say it must be provided from somewhere.
“We accept that this is not the fault of our own service. The money is just not being provided to the ambulance service in the mid west. Money has to be made available from the department or somewhere, so that we can also have the proper equipment we require to adequately care for the public,” a technician said.
EMT’s claim they are operating machines which used to be serviced only once a year. Now though, because they are so old, equipment needs to be serviced four or five times annually.
The HSE (Mid-West) has confirmed, “The ambulance service has not informed staff that cardiac defibrillators would not be replaced. We currently have some equipment which unfortunately cannot be upgraded with new software to meet the recent changes to the ILCOR guidelines.
However, we have been advised by our suppliers that the current equipment can be configured to facilitate the two minute interval between defibrillations as recommended by the International Liaison Committee on Resuscitation (ILCOR).”