St John providing more lifesaving equipment thanks to Lotterywest

St John CEO Tony Ahern said they are incredibly grateful for the donation which will allow for more than 1,000 defibrillators to be provided to sporting clubs, not for profit organisations and community groups.

“St John is a believer in a “system saving people”, Mr Ahern said. “That system includes publicly accessible defibrillators, people trained in first aid, and quality, timely ambulance services.”

“With a cardiac arrest, every minute that goes by without help can reduce a person’s chance of survival by 10 per cent, therefore the placement of more publicly accessible defibrillators will save more lives.”

“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 got any knowledge of first aid training,” Mr Ahern said.

“We are very grateful to Lotterywest for this donation, it will have a big impact on the WA community and ultimately help save lives.

“This marks Lotterywest’s 85th year of support for St John.”

Via the Community First Responder (CFR) program, St John maintains a register of more than 2,200 defibrillators that are linked in with the triple zero (000) call centre so they can be readily deployed when a cardiac arrest has occurred.

Also, by downloading the free St John first responder app, when the user calls triple zero (000), first responders near the location are alerted and can provide vital first aid with the use of a defibrillator in the minutes before the ambulance crew arrives.

“This grant will help St John WA achieve our goal to become best practice in the world at out of hospital cardiac arrest survival and build stronger and more resilient communities,” Mr Ahern concluded.

Health Minister Roger Cook described the Community First Responder program as a fantastic initiative saying the rollout of approximately 1000 more defibrillators for the program – made possible by the Lotterywest grant – would significantly improve the capacity St John and members of the community to save lives.