For years, the annual christmas donation of the rehaklinik am kurpark in bad kissingen has gone to an institution, a needy individual or a project in the region. This time the clinic presented all guests and burgers of the spa town with a defibrilator, which has already been installed for a week in the passage between the fountain and walking hall. "We want to improve the medical infrastructure in bad kissingen", holger metz, commercial manager of the rehabilitation clinic, named the donation, which cost a total of 2033 euros and was realized by the bad kissingen center for telemedicine (ZTM) and the local forderverein health center.
"Four years ago, the ZTM launched its "AED offensive", project manager thomas schreiner said on friday at the official commissioning of the tenth automatic external defibrillator (AED) in the city center. The goal of the offensive is to have at least one such device in every town or village. "A defibrilator helps save lives, because sudden cardiac death can happen anywhere and at any time." The center for telemedicine has already installed more than 30 defibrilators in the county and neighboring areas – some with, but also without a direct telephone connection to the rescue control center in schweinfurt. While the device, which has long been installed on the outer wall of the arcade building, is connected to schweinfurt by telephone, this has not been done for the new device in the walking hall, which is only open during the day.
Help on demand
But even this simpler defibrilator fulfills all the requirements for combating life-threatening ventricular fibrillation and is very easy for any medical layman to operate in an emergency, assured schreiner. "You simply can’t go wrong." After the opening of the device, every single hand movement is announced to the first aider via audio tape. Even in the case of incorrect application, the electronically controlled device corrects the first aider with a corresponding announcement.
"Every year in germany there are 3700 traffic fatalities and 500 fire deaths, but the 120,000 cardiac deaths are never reported in the media", the ZTM project manager emphasized the importance of a defibrilator. "Every commercial vehicle should be equipped with such a device." Because in the case of ventricular fibrillation and severe cardiac arrhythmia, every minute counts. Within the first three minutes, the chance of survival is still 70 to 100 percent; after ten minutes, only 50 percent. Since emergency vehicles can take up to ten minutes to arrive at the scene of an accident, or even more in bottleneck situations, first aid to the patient can save lives.
So when a defibrilator is only two minutes away, it’s worth getting it, advises schreiner to get help fast. There is a map on the internet showing all the defibrilator locations in germany and their distance in minutes from the first responder’s location. This card can be saved as an app on any cell phone.
With regular maintenance, the service life of a defibrilator is unlimited. The future operating costs of the device in the indoor swimming pool, amounting to 20 euros per month, will be borne by staatsbad gmbh. "It’s worth it to us", sylvie thormann, the clinic’s managing director and spa director, was delighted to receive the new defibrillator and thanked the rehaklinik am kurpark on behalf of all the guests and citizens of bad kissingen.