Fewer than 40% of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest patients receive CPR before EMS teams arrive, according to the American Heart Association. Even fewer patients are treated with an automated external defibrillator or AED. 

New initiatives and partnerships are working to change that, with the goal of doubling the survival rate for heart attacks.

"The idea is to ensure that lifesaving policies are in place at the high school level to make sure that our kids, if they suffer sudden cardiac arrest, have the best possible chances of success," said Jeff Miller, the NFL's executive vice president for health and safety innovation.

The NFL and other professional sports leagues are working with the Red Cross and the American Heart Association to promote their Smart Heart Coalition.

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"With schools being a focal place for gathering in the community, it's really important that we have emergency response plans," said Nancy Brown, the American Heart Association's CEO. 

"We know that although the statistics are true, that older people are more likely to have a cardiac arrest or a cardiovascular event, young people still have these events as well. So we want to be sure that someone is prepared everywhere to save a life."

When Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin collapsed during a live Monday Night Football game about six months ago, his team’s doctors were prepared.

"The people were in place; they were practiced," said Miller. "They had trained their emergency action plan. They knew to take Damar to a level one trauma center when he was evacuated from the field. They had the device there and they knew what to do with it."

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Miller said the NFL and Hamlin wanted to take advantage of all the attention received from this incident — and encourage everyone to have a response plan.

"We learned a lot and have tried to share a lot," Miller said. "But at the high school level, obviously they don't have the same sort of resources or setup that the NFL does. And so we want to translate some of those learnings alongside the American Heart Association, the American Red Cross and others to make sure that our schools are in the best possible place to help out kids who might need it."

Every year, an estimated 350,000 people experience a heart attack outside the hospital. One in 300 kids has an undetected heart condition.

"There isn't sufficient awareness. Parents, coaches and others should insist upon these very basic, simple, easy-to-enact solutions to what is a thankfully not very common, but at the same time all too common phenomenon," Miller said. 

"Those deaths are simply preventable by these three simple policy adjustments: CPR education, an emergency action plan and the availability of an AED nearby [within] one to three minutes of an athletic contest or practice so the kid can be saved."

Athletes and health officials have also taken the effort to Capitol Hill. Lawmakers have introduced the Access to AEDs Act, which would provide additional funding for schools.

"It’s grants that would enable communities and athletic facilities to get access," Sen. Peter Welch (D-Vermont) said.

Welch said a reaction plan is important, and a quick response helped save his brother’s life.

"My brother was playing basketball and he collapsed. They had, right there at this gym, a defibrillator," Welch said. 

"And 20 years later, John's still playing basketball. So we're really grateful in the Welch family that this community has done it."

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Kansas Sen. Roger Marshall is a medical doctor. He believes if more people know where AEDs are located and how to use them, they can help save additional lives.

"The chances of a person surviving this goes up from one out of 10 to three out of 10 if someone's able to start CPR. It probably goes up to seven out of 10 if we have an AED available as well," Marshall said. 

"I'm committed to getting them across the country in the right locations, but also figuring out everyone should have some type of an app downloaded that could show us those locations."

MedStar Health in Washington, D.C., is partnering with professional athletes from the Washington Capitals, Mystics and Wizards to demonstrate how to perform CPR and how to use an AED.

"Getting the athletes on board, with their star power, definitely makes people excited about it," Dr. Alex Koo said. 

When they show "how easy it is without any training, I think people can get really excited about and say, ‘Hey, I can do it as well.'"

MedStar Health hopes the videos make people more comfortable about learning and performing CPR.

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"Black communities, as well as Hispanic communities, sometimes don't have as high rates of bystander CPR. And so that's something that we want to highlight, that this is something that's accessible to everybody," Dr. Koo said.

CPR training no longer includes mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. The American Heart Association also says that hands-only CPR can really make a difference.

"We recognized that mouth-to-mouth resuscitation was a barrier for some people in administering CPR," Brown told Fox News. 

"Generally cardiac arrests, if they are witnessed, are generally witnessed by someone who knows the person that might be having the cardiac arrest. So the skill of learning CPR is really important because you might be saving the life of someone you know and love."

The American Heart Association believes that while formal CPR training is important, simple videos and easy-to-learn methods can still help save lives.

"We do intend at the AHA to create a ‘Nation of Lifesavers’ and we encourage everyone to learn CPR," Brown said. "I think that CPR and AED training should be part of everyone's summer safety plan."

You can watch MedStar Health's videos at MedStarHealth.org/CPR. 

If you are interested in getting CPR-certified or learning to use an AED, you can find a class in your area at CPR.heart.org.

The Guyana Police Force (GPF) on Tuesday indicated it had halted all investigations into a 16-year old girl’s allegation that Local Government Minister Nigel Dharamlall raped her at his residence last December. According to the law enforcement agency, that decision was based on advice by the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) after the girl last ...

Thirty-four persons of Amerindian descent as well as several activists of the women’s rights organisation, Red Thread, on Tuesday demanded broad-based health, legal and financial support for the 16-year old girl who alleged that she was raped by Local Government Minister Nigel Dharamlall. “Apolitical coordination of support for the child, with Indigenous groups and communities ...

Health and education officials in Barbados are sharing ideas on how to accelerate the removal of ultra-processed products from schools across the region.

They are hoping this will be one of several strategic approaches to address the issue of childhood obesity, which they said has become very worrisome.

They are holding discussions at a two-day event which opened on Tuesday at the Courtyard by Marriott Bridgetown, hosted by the Healthy Caribbean Coalition (HCC) and the Pan-American Health Organisation (PAHO), and attended by several local and regional stakeholders.

The post Talks on to get ultra-processed foods out of schools appeared first on Barbados Today.

Santo Domingo.- Contrary to the claims made by Hogar Crea Dominicana Dominicana regarding the presence of fentanyl in the country and the treatment of two individuals by the organization, the National Directorate for Drug Control (DNCD) and the National Drug Council (CND) have denied these allegations.

According to the DNCD, in their efforts to combat drug trafficking in the country, they have not seized fentanyl or “zombie drugs” during the tenure of Vice Admiral José Manuel Cabrera Ulloa.

The DNCD and the CND’s response came after César Richardson, a representative of Hogar Crea Dominicana based in Santiago de los Caballeros, confirmed the existence of the drug to Listín Diario. They also highlighted that the National Institute of Forensic Sciences (INACIF) has not confirmed the presence of fentanyl in the drugs that have been previously analyzed. Adding on,  states that they have conducted searches and interdictions in public spaces as indicated by the media reports, resulting in the arrest of individuals and confiscation of various other types of substances. The DNCD assures the public that they will continue their operations and interventions and are committed to addressing complaints of this nature and any others that may arise. The entity emphasizes that all seizures conducted by the institution are sent to INACIF under chain of custody for analysis, which certifies the type and weight of each substance.

Similarly, the CND, in a statement, confirms that fentanyl, an opioid estimated to cause the death of 200 people every day in the United States due to overdose, has not been identified in any illegal narcotics during the current administration of the anti-narcotics authorities. The CND highlights that INACIF maintains an extensive database that allows the identification of approximately 300 variants of fentanyl.

The statement specifies that the interventions conducted in the public spaces mentioned in television programs have resulted in the arrest of individuals and the confiscation of other substances, according to reports from INACIF.

Additionally, the Ministry of Public Health has reported no epidemiological alerts related to deaths caused by a possible overdose of fentanyl in the country.

View the full post CARPHA observes a decade of Public Health Service on NOW Grenada.

Bávaro, Punta Cana.- Retired veterans of the United States Armed Forces who visit the Bávaro-Punta Cana area have an outpatient clinic at their service.

With the objective of improving their health and well-being, and honoring their sacrifices, the Veterans Community Care Abroad clinic was inaugurated on Avenida España, Corner Plaza, Bávaro.

Alfredo Cordero, retired Army captain and clinic executive, explained that this center is at the service of veterans who served the US for more than 120 days and who reside in the Dominican Republic, however, they are ready to receive active or retired Dominican soldiers, as well as other members of the local community on specific days.

Medical services are free of charge, as they are managed through a program of the US Armed Forces.

The clinic is an outpatient clinic that goes from an initial intervention with a general practitioner who deduces what conditions veterans suffer from, which have been produced or aggravated during military service.

General medicine, psychology, and rehabilitation of physical therapies are offered, as well as therapeutic and relaxing massages, psychiatry, and orthopedics, among other services.

Opening hours are Monday through Friday from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. and Saturdays from 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.
Phone: (809) 795-1198
WA: (809) 841-1198
Website: www.vccavet.com

-Code also considers health of victim, withdrawal from case Guyana’s Code for Prosecutors provides sufficient basis for Local Government Minister Nigel Dharamlall  to be charged with the rape of a 16-year old girl although the complainant has formally asked to withdraw the complaint, the Guyana Human Rights Association (GHRA) said on Saturday. “Public interest considerations ...

The new specialists were presented during yesterday’s celebration of the forty-eighth promotion of Cardiologists, the twenty-sixth graduation of Cardiologists-Ecocardiographers, and the second promotion of Intensivist Cardiologists.

With this promotion, the Institute of Cardiology joins the delivery of new specialists in the different medical branches that have made this week other teaching hospitals in the country, among them the Salvador B. Gautier and José María Cabral y Báez, which are developing various training programs. The event was headed by the medical director of the Institute of Cardiology, Dr. Mayra Melo, and the deputy director, Dr. Josué Pichardo, among other authorities.

When delivering the central words, Melo exhorted the new cardiologists to practice medicine with the human quality that the health center preaches and that is always focused on the benefit of the patients, “especially at this time when the aftermath of the health crisis that we recently experienced with Covid-19 is severely affecting them”.

“Today we have the satisfaction of duty fulfilled, as we are adding to the Dominican health system, ten specialists in the field of cardiology, two in echocardiography and an intensivist, who have successfully completed the program established by the direction of medical residencies of the Ministry of Public Health, the Ministry of Higher Education, Science and Technology, endorsed by the Autonomous University of Santo Domingo,” he said. They were sworn in by Dr. Aimée Flores, Teaching Coordinator of the AIDC, and Dr. Natividad Díaz, head of the Teaching Department of the AIDC, presented them with the certification.

Under the name “Parade of Generations,” this event will take place this Sunday, July 2, at 4:00 in the afternoon within the framework of the VEST International, an outstanding exhibition on beauty, health, energy, and wellness, which will take place from June 30 to July 2 this year at the Catalonia Hotel & Resort, in Santo Domingo.

With the purchase of a 2,000 pesos ticket, attendees will be able to enjoy the parade, featuring the participation of families with children affected by Cystic Fibrosis. This will be an opportunity to raise awareness in the community about this disease and raise the necessary funds to improve the patient’s quality of life. Alexandra Tabar, president of the foundation, emphasized that they need resources to support their beneficiaries.