Around the 16 October every year a global awareness campaign called ‘Restart A Heart’ is held to raise public awareness of cardiac arrests and also increase the number of people within local communities who are trained in CPR.
This year the Resuscitation Team at the South Eastern HSC Trust brought this training right into the heart of the Ulster Hospital. The team captured a wide audience by demonstrating this high quality lifesaving training to staff, patients and visitors in the main hospital restaurant, Café Connect.
Everyone was welcome to join in and learn the correct procedures for giving CPR. Participants were able to demonstrate CPR on the resuscitation dummies provided, whilst getting clear guidance from the Resuscitation Team to ensure they completed the procedures correctly, reinforcing their confidence in using their newly acquired skills.
Resuscitation Officer, Heidi Spence explained the importance of today’s event, saying, “Today myself and my team are hosting a ‘Restart A Heart’ day, this is a worldwide event held each year to raise awareness of cardiac arrests and the importance of CPR training.
“We decided to bring the training out of the classroom and into our Café Connect restaurant to give access to this vital CPR course to our staff, patients and visitors.
“30,000 people in the UK suffer an out of hospital cardiac arrest but unfortunately only 1 in 10 of those people will actually survive. We want to promote CPR skills for everyone and build their confidence to try and resuscitate someone in cardiac arrest.”
Acting Chairman of the Trust Jonathan Patton showed his support on the day and took part in the training, commenting “The Resuscitation Team is teaching important lifesaving CPR skills and giving everyone an opportunity to learn skills that could ultimately save lives. I would like to thank the Resuscitation Team for their great initiative in bringing this event to our patients, visitors and non clinical staff. I am really delighted that I have now been shown how to do CPR properly.”