Thank you, Mr. Speaker. WHEREAS every 26 minutes a Canadian suffers a sudden cardiac arrest;
AND WHEREAS more Canadians die each year from cardiac arrest than from car accidents, diabetes, breast and prostate cancers combined;
AND WHEREAS each minute that passes decreases the chance of survival from cardiac arrest by nearly 10 percent;
AND WHEREAS almost 80 percent of all cardiac arrests in Canada occur in homes and in public places;
AND WHEREAS a defibrillator can dramatically improve cardiac arrest survival rates by more than 50 percent;
AND WHEREAS automated external defibrillators can be installed at any location throughout any community, such as recreation centres, arenas and schools;
NOW THEREFORE I MOVE, seconded by the honourable Member for Sahtu, that this Legislative Assembly strongly recommends that the Government of the Northwest Territories take the steps necessary to ensure widespread access to automated external defibrillators (AEDs);
AND FURTHER, that the government work with the Heart and Stroke Foundation, the NWT Association of Communities, the NWT fire marshal’s office and the NWT fire chiefs, and the RCMP to ensure access to defibrillators across the NWT by designating locations where AEDs must be made available, and require mandatory registration of all installed AEDs;
AND FURTHER, that the government develop protocols to ensure the monitoring and maintenance of all defibrillators in NWT communities;
AND FURTHER, that the government make funding available to NWT communities for training of staff in public buildings where defibrillators are placed;
AND FURTHERMORE, that the government provide a response to this motion within 120 days.
Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. The motion is in order. To the motion. Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. At the outset I would like to thank Mr. Yakeleya for seconding the motion and I bring this motion forward in the interest of safety of our residents and the preservation of lives.
It’s a fact that defibrillators can make a life and death difference in the same way that a fire extinguisher can make a significant difference between life and death. AEDs are portable, easy to use, and modern technology, with some defibrillators, now provides voice prompt instructions and requires virtually no training whatsoever. That’s not to say that training is not required. It is required. If AEDs are combined with CPR, the use of a defibrillator can increase the likelihood of saving a person’s life by 75 percent or more.
The defibrillator works by assessing the heart of a person in cardiac arrest for what’s called a shockable rhythm. If such a rhythm is detected, the defibrillator requests the shock or a series of shocks to the victim’s heart. If no shockable rhythm is detected, no shock can be given.
Concerns and questions of safety have been raised in other jurisdictions about the public using defibrillators. Experts in the field say that in fact the technology is now so advanced that elementary school children can be equipped with the skills to successfully use a modern defibrillator simply through reading and writing and listening.
So why do I feel the government needs to get involved with the provision of AEDs? We talk a lot about prevention and how important prevention is. Having an AED readily available for a cardiac arrest situation is preventative and I feel it’s common sense for us to be prepared.
I want to tell a story that occurred last December when the Yellowknife MLAs held a tea for the Yellowknife seniors here in the Great Hall. I was appointed to be the emcee this particular year. So at the outset of the tea I mentioned a number of safety things, I advised where the washrooms were, I advised where the doors were for people to exit and so on, and one of the CAs came up to me after that brief introduction while the seniors were enjoying their tea and goodies and leaned over and whispered in my ear and said, where’s your first aid kit and do we have a defibrillator and where is it? And I went, um, I have no idea. I know where the safety kit is, but I have no idea whether or not we have a defibrillator.
So that got me started, and as the motion states, cardiac arrests can happen frequently and they can happen without warning. Unfortunately, as I’m well aware, our population is aging and we are going to get a more aged population every year. It’s a fact of life here and it’s a fact of life in Canada.
Luckily, we have AEDs in many of our buildings in the North already. It’s not that we don’t have any, we do have quite a few, but it’s a hit and miss situation and my goal is to try and make it a much less hit and miss.
The motion asks the government to determine where AEDs should be located. It also asks that this will allow the government to determine that they are as widely placed as possible and in as many buildings as possible. The closer an AED is to the person undergoing a cardiac arrest, the higher their chance of survival, and they say that three minutes, if you can get the AED and return to the person in three minutes, then there’s a very good chance of survival. So that means we need to have defibrillators in fairly close locations to people, wherever they are taking part in activities.
I mentioned, during the budget debate, that we have an opportunity to provide funding for communities in acquiring AEDs for their public buildings, when I was speaking to the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs. We currently have an unused emergency fund. The Minister advised that there’s only one application before that fund in the ‘13-14 year. It would seem to me that we could put that fund to a much better use by advising communities that they can apply for funding to put AEDs into their communities and their public spaces and in their public buildings. It could also be used for training for those staff who happen to work in those buildings. I reiterate again that we shouldn’t be installing AEDs without also having training for the people who are close to them and need to know how to use them if a cardiac arrest situation occurs.
So, why have I referenced the Heart and Stroke Foundation and a number of other organizations? I don’t feel the government needs to do this on their own and we certainly have organizations that are out there. The Heart and Stroke Foundation, for sure, is very involved with heart conditions and cardiac arrests. They can provide valuable advice on what we should be doing and where we need AEDs and how many we need. They can identify the public places where people are and the public places where people are going to be at greatest risk for cardiac arrest. Certainly, they can tell us that those places, whatever is identified, would be the best ones where we can place a defibrillator. I say that we consult with them because there needs to be a review of the level of risk that is out there in terms of buildings and people and cardiac arrest.
I don’t believe that we have to do this all in one fell swoop. I think we can start with buildings and public places where we determine that people are at the greatest risk and start with those and make sure we have defibrillators in those places – and we may have some in many places already – then, in stages, work our way outwards until we have defibrillators in as many places as we need.
The motion asks for some regulation, for some consistency around where we can find AEDs in the NWT and that’s what I’m after. We don’t need to blanket the NWT, but we certainly need to have more than we do now.
The other aspect of the motion is to ask for a registry, and that may seem like an onerous task, but I think that the locations of defibrillators, if known, can certainly aid somebody who is in a strange place. If we ever get 911, for instance, if I’m in a situation where I see a cardiac arrest happening and I don’t know where the defibrillator is, I could call 911, they could check the registry, they can tell me where it is, it can be gotten and applied to the person.
So I think a registry certainly will assist communities in knowing whether or not they’ve got defibrillators, whether they need to get more and it could potentially assist in a lifesaving situation.
I think this is a chance to improve circumstances in the NWT for all of our residents. I don’t think it will cost us much money, I don’t think it will cost us much time to get the work done required to accede to what’s requested in the motion.
I would hope that all Members would support the motion. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. To the motion. I’ll allow the seconder to the motion, Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to thank the honourable Member for bringing this motion forward. I was very pleased to second it because I believe this motion is giving the communities and the people in the Northwest Territories a greater chance of saving lives. No guarantees, if the big guy wants you up there he’ll take you no matter what, but this gives us a fighting chance. It’s a possibility for our community members, as Ms. Bisaro has indicated, giving our communities a fighting chance if we had these defibrillators situated in parts of our communities. I know this was an issue a couple of years ago when I talked about this and we had them in hockey rec centres and sporting centres and I do see them there. It would be good training now for people to start recognizing them if they walk into a hotel, if there’s a sign there that says or indicates that there’s a defibrillator there, then people will know, at least consciously. They might not use it, but at least they know if something happens.
Even in our small communities, there’s a lot of people in our small communities go out in great numbers as their own community to bush camps. Why can’t they have a defibrillator when they go to these bush camps and stay for a week or two weeks on the spring hunt? There are actually families out there, 20 or 30 people in these bush camps in the springtime. It would be nice to have a defibrillator out there. We have progressed; however, we still go back to the old training of our manual, but it’s good to have the defibrillators also with us there.
Ms. Bisaro talked about partnership. This government is all about partnership, so I’d like to continue that discussion and work with the different partnerships that can help us. Again, when coming to the communities, it should be like in our phone book and people know where the defibrillators are located, just like the RCMP or there’s a nurse or there’s the mail. Those types of things are important for our visitors to know that there are designated sites. Start looking at this, as it needs to be put into our operations in the Northwest Territories.
Training is also very important. Of course, the government would have to consider, if we do this, what’s the liability of putting this program into action. I say, what’s the liability of not having it? We would have a greater chance of saving lives in our communities, even at the airport. I don’t know if we even have a defibrillator at the airports in the Northwest Territories. We need to do an assessment, look at things, see where they’re going, and let’s give our communities a greater chance of saving a life if we had some of these defibrillators in our communities.
Once again, I say in closing that, really, if the big guy upstairs wants you, he’ll take you no matter what you do. However, he’s also made it known that if there are things that could save a life, then we should also be using that type of smarts in our operations as a government. I support this motion 100 percent. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. To the motion. I will allow Mr. McLeod to speak.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This is a very important topic across the Northwest Territories. We have heard that in many of our public places they would like to have automatic external defibrillators, AEDs, in their facilities.
Working with the communities, there is an opportunity there for the communities to use the funding that we provide to purchase the defibrillators and then, as we debated in the budget in the House just recently, we had some extra money in there for emergency training and ground ambulance training. That pot of money could also be used for training on the use of defibrillators. We feel that is very important. I think communities are starting to recognize the importance of having these.
As far as I know, all the health centres across the Northwest Territories do have them in the health centres. We have to expand that. We have to expand that to the communities.
We have a meeting coming up with the NWT Association of Communities up in Inuvik. I’m sure this is an issue that will be discussed, because I think we are starting to see more and more the benefits of having devices such as these in a lot of our public places, in community halls especially where there are always large gatherings. There are opportunities there to improve on this.
Again, I say that because of the fact that we give the money to communities and they determine how they want to use it, there will be an opportunity there for them to purchase these. We have to ensure that the training goes along with it. We have to also do some research with our other jurisdictions to see if there is any type of liability, how we, as a government, can legislate or regulate liabilities. So we’ll do the work. We will work with the communities again.
I think this is an important motion. I think it’s important to people across the Northwest Territories. As this is a recommendation, Cabinet will be abstaining from the vote. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. I will allow closing remarks and then close debate on this motion. Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to thank Mr. Yakeleya for his remarks and thank the Minister, as well, for sounding very positive. I really look forward to working with the Minister to get this done.
