Sporting and community groups encouraged to apply for a Heart Grant

Not-for-profit organisations across WA are encouraged to apply to receive a public access defibrillator and storage cabinet.

Thanks to a generous $1.3 million donation from Lotterywest, St John is rolling out the Heart Grant program which will result in an extra 1000 defibrillators in the community, increasing the capacity for bystanders to save a life in the event of a cardiac arrest.

St John CEO Michelle Fyfe said St John was determined to see cardiac arrest survival rates improve in WA and the key to achieving that was more public access defibrillators in the community.

“We’d like to see them become as commonplace as pool fences or smoke alarms, as they really do save lives,” Mrs Fyfe said.

“The use of a defibrillator can boost the survival rate in cardiac arrest from 10 per cent to up to 40 per cent.

“These devices, which deliver a therapeutic dose of electrical energy to a person’s heart when it has stopped pumping, are very easy to use even if you haven’t had any first aid training.

“Since 2016 we have had 22 people shocked with a defibrillator from a sporting or social location and result in their heart restarting.”

For an outlay of $200, the Heart Grant will deliver more than $2000 of value to successful applicants, including the defibrillator unit, a lock box and first aid training.

The lock box allows the defibrillators to be fixed to the outside of a building, and thereby accessible around the clock.

The grant is available to all not-for-profit WA sporting and community groups that are incorporated associations. To apply, visit: https://www.stjohnheartgrant.com.au/

Additional information:

• Via the Community First Responder (CFR) program, St John maintains a register of more than 2700 defibrillators that are linked in with the triple zero (000) call centre so they can be readily deployed when a cardiac arrest has occurred.
• 565 sporting and social clubs are registered as Community First Responder locations.
• All of these defibrillators are linked in with the free St John first responder smartphone app, showing the bystander the nearest defibrillator.
• St John provided first aid training to more than 403,000 people in 2017/18.