NEW RESEARCH FUNDED by the Health Research Board has revealed that hundreds of lives could be saved each year if GP surgeries are equipped with defibrillators.

The findings, published in the HRB’s Picture of Health 2012 today, show that patients would be three or four times more likely to survive cardiac arrest outside hospital if GPs and other healthcare professionals are trained to use defibrillators to intervene rapidly.

The data is based on a five-year project which provided 500 GPs with defibrillators and appropriate training to intervene when a patient was suffering a heart complication called ventricular fibrillation.

“We know how to fix ventricular fibrillation, but fixing it is completely and utterly time dependent,” explains Professor Gerard Bury from UCD, who led the study.

“Nationally, survival rates for a sudden cardiac arrest if it happens out of hospital are one in 20. But this research shows that the availability and proper use of defibrillators by GPS increases these survival rates three or four-fold.

“Fundamentally, what we have demonstrated is the extraordinary success of the implementation of a scheme like MERIT.”

MERIT was funded by the HSE, Pre-Hospital Emergency Council and the Department of Health. The events recorded during the research predominantly occurred in small towns and rural Ireland, where outcomes, traditionally, tended to be worse than in urban areas.

Every year, three to five thousand people die from sudden cardiac problems that may not have been fatal if treated in time.

Professor Bury said a spend of about €4,000 per GP surgery should be seen as a positive investment.

“This sort of structured intervention and support, allied with the strength of general practice can make a huge difference at local level,” he said. “Every GP in the country needs a defibrillator.”

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