The Philippine Heart Association (PHA) has welcomed a partnership with the Department of the Interior and Local Government toward a CPR-ready and 911-ready Philippines.
Dr. Don Robespierre Reyes, chair of the PHA’s Council on Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR), stated that timely response and interagency coordination are needed to save more lives during cardiac emergencies.
“An immediate CPR is a bridge to life for cardiac arrest victims to increase survival by 30%,” he said over the weekend.
At the PHA’s Usapang Puso sa Puso Media Conference in Quezon City, Emergency 911 National Office executive director Francis Fajardo said he would suggest to the 911 Commission to include PHA and integrate CPR in its 911 operations.
He said the 911 Commission is now developing a system to handle calls in local dialects for a faster response.
Reyes called on the Philippine National Police to include CPR training in the recruitment of future police officers.
“We noticed that it is not integral in the training of the PNP to learn CPR,” Reyes said.
He said there is a need to train more people to perform CPR as first responders.
Among them are police officers, barangay watchmen, government firefighters, disaster risk reduction and management personnel, public school teachers, and even students.
“With the many [first] responders around, we can reduce the number of 70,000 Filipinos dying per day due to sudden cardiac arrest a year to 35,000,” Reyes said.
