The Consumers’ Association of Canada urges the Senate to include medical supplies and AED or automated external defibrillator to be considered in legislation that will result to a new bill of rights of airline passengers.
Need for more defibrillators
This was suggested by one of the passengers aboard a WestJet flight from Hawaii to Calgary in which an old man died after suffering a medical emergency. The late night flight from Honolulu was scheduled to arrive in Calgary in the morning. During the trip, flight attendants can be heard asking if there was a nurse or doctor on board. A woman volunteered and identified herself as a nurse. She immediately provided first aid and CPR to the old man. She asked the crew of the plane for an AED or automated external defibrillator. The plane crew begins searching on overhead bins to look for an AED. It was already about 10 minutes when a defibrillator was located.
According to the heart and Stroke Foundation, if an AED is delivered immediately, defibrillation and CPR will double the survival rate of cardiac arrest. For every minutes delay, the survival of the victim decreases seven to ten percentage points. CPR was provided to the man for more than 30 minutes before it was determined that the man is already dead.
Claims of the airlines
In an emailed statement of the spokesperson of WestJet, he stated that the crew of the airlines utilized the AED and provided CPR to the old man with the help of a nurse who was on-board the plane. The plane is supplied with an AED, medical emergency kit and a MEDAire satellite phone that have a direct access to emergency doctors. Furthermore he stated that both the MEDAire satellite phone and the AED are already above and beyond what is required by the regulator.
The president of the consumers association suggests that Transport Canada should require all airlines to carry defibrillators and the plane crew should know how to use them.
A Representative of Transport Canada, stated in news, that if airlines do provide additional medical equipments such as defibrillator, the staff and crew of the airlines should be properly trained on how to operate the devices. The planes should carry first aid kits, portable oxygen, fire extinguishers and flashlights.
For more information about this story, click here.
LEARN MORE
Learn how to help by enrolling in a course on first aid and CPR and for more information, check out these sources:
https://www.mayoclinic.org/first-aid/first-aid-cpr/basics/art-20056600