The City Hall of Kolozsvár/Cluj-Napoca will place defibrillators in the busy parts or public spaces of the city, says the mayor of the city, Emil Boc. The City Hall, with the support of SMURD, an emergency rescue service in Romania, will also hold a first-aid public information campaign, so the people living in Kolozsvár will be able to give first aid to people who require such intervention and will know how to use the defibrillators. According to the mayor, the machines will be purchased this year.
The idea of placing defibrillators in the busy part of the city came from a resident doctor from Kolozsvár, who presented it in this year’s edition of participatory budgeting project of the city. The idea was a success, the people living in Kolozsvár voted it, so it will be implemented by the City Hall. Emil Boc declared, the city has got enough funds to purchase the machines this year.
The defibrillators will be placed in the busy public places of Kolozsvár, like the train station or the City Hall. The exact locations are not selected yet, firstly the representatives of the City Hall will discuss the issue with representatives of SMURD (short for Mobile Emergency Service for Resuscitation and Extrication). The maintainers of the defibrillators will also be these two parties.
According to the resident doctor, who came up with the idea, 10-15 defibrillators should be enough to cover the city. The doctor would place them on different spots in the center of the city, or other busy places, like the train station, the BT-Arena, the parks, next to different libraries, or at the court.
Two years earlier state secretary of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Raed Arafat presented a similar idea in Kolozsvár for medicine students. He pointed out that this initiative could save lives. According to Arafat, the chance of survival is decreasing 10% per minute in a case of a heart attack, but with these defibrillators anyone who knows how to perform first-aid, will be able to help these people until the professional medical help arrives.
According to local newspaper Szabadság, 350,000 people suffer from heart attacks every year outside the hospital in Europe. If the infarction did not occur in the hospital, the rescuers could only intervene in every fifth case. In Europe only one person out of ten survives a heart attack, but the survival rate is only 3% in the case of Romania.
Title image: Only 3 of a 100 people survive a heart attack in Romania. Photo: http://nihealthcare.com
