“Drama has one defibrillator for every thousand residents. This is the highest figure in Europe together with the city of Copenhagen,” he told K. Christos Kairiscardiologist and vice president of the Dramina Arrest Rescue Volunteers Association.

Every year or so 350 000 Europeans will suffer from out-of-hospital cardiac arrest. Despite this 16% – 20% arrests occur in public places and cardiopulmonary resuscitation by bystanders is known to increases survival by two to three timesit occurs in only one in five out-of-hospital interruptions.

In a country like Hellas Where tail in survival statistics after out-of-hospital cardiac arrest in Europe, the existence of a model city such as Dramaat least promising. However, even this effort runs into problems associated with it. awareness of the state and citizens about the use of defibrillators And training in cardiorespiratory resuscitation techniques.

Defibrillators with trackers

Club Volunteer rescuers in dramatic cardiac arrest founded to create in drama knowledge about cardiac arrest and the use of defibrillators, and that there are such a large number of defibrillators in the city, most of which were donated Kostas ApostolidisPresident and Managing Director of Raycap, in the city of Eastern Macedonia.

Nearly two years after the arrival of the last defibrillators, the club is very close to achieving one of its main goals: make all defibrillators available to the public 24 hours a day. The relevant circular also states that the defibrillator site must be accessible (one to one and a half minutes walk) and clearly visible to everyone. As the president of the association and cardiologist Achilleas Papadopoulos explained to K, many defibrillators are still in public buildings, churches, sports facilities and other cultural centers that do not work constantly. However, in order to place all defibrillators outside in special cases and ensure that they are not stolen or lost and that they perform in an exemplary manner, the members of the Association first wanted to create an innovative application.

As soon as someone takes the defibrillator, the police, ambulance and fire department will be notified.

“We are integrating trackers into defibrillators that, as soon as someone takes the defibrillator out of the box, informs the police, ambulance and fire department of where they are going. In the same time, notification of trained rescuers within a radius of 200-300 meters about where the defibrillator is directed so that they can approach the person and help him with their knowledge, ”he emphasized. All this will be done through a mobile application, which will also have one more function: it will show with the help of trackers whether the defibrillator battery is low or some part of the equipment is not working. “This is done so that there is no ridiculous fact that there are many defibrillators that will not work because someone will have to constantly check them,” the cardiologist added. The club will patent the application and then launch it.

We lack knowledge

“We are lucky that we have a lot of defibrillators. According to international standards, one defibrillator is needed for every 1,500 people. Drama has it. However, in terms of knowledge, we lag behind other countries,” said Mr. Papadopoulos. According to the organization, about 1,000 people have been trained to date, and the goal is to train a total of 15,000 people in the next five years, i.e. 1/3 of the inhabitants of the city.

A recent seminar was attended by six to seven people.

However, such a thing is not so simple. “This year, we can say that there is a satisfactory number of citizens who have completed training, but because of the pandemic, the process has reversed,” said Christos Kairis, Vice President of the Association. Educating people about cardiopulmonary resuscitation and defibrillator use also plays a role, he said. “This year’s hotel and catering workshop was heartbreaking.. I organized it myself, I contacted myself, I went to hotels, I called restaurants, we informed the labor center, the trade association and attendance was six or seven people. And the seminars were all free of charge,” Mr. Kairis emphasized, noting that the post-coronavirus era has reduced people’s interest in such issues.

Investing in a new generation

Through the Lifelong Learning Program “The City that Learns”, Larisa has trained about 500 people since 2019, and the municipality continues to certify 250 citizens as lifeguards. But the innovative element that appears is training of teachers and all students of the 1st grade of the gymnasium in all schools of the city. We are forming a new generation that will be trained in the use of defibrillators and sensitized in this regard,” he said. Dimitris DeligiannisDeputy Mayor for Administration, Education and Continuing Education of Larisa.

About five years ago, the municipality purchased 29 defibrillators and plans to purchase 30 more in the near future for installation in public buildings, school complexes and sports fields. According to medical information, if an automated external defibrillator (AED) arrives within three to five minutes, the chances of survival jump from 50% to 70%. at the same time, every minute that passes, the chance to survive decreases by 10%.