Parks, tourist spots personnel undergo CPR training

SOME 1,000 personnel and service providers in the city’s various parks, city market and other tourist spots availed of the free training on cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) on July 28 to enable them to attend to heart disease-related emergencies in their places of work.

Councilor Elmer Datuin said this is in line with the city’s aim of making its tourist spots “CPR-ready” to enhance services to visitors and residents especially in life-threatening emergencies.

The city took advantage of the free CPR training conducted by the Philippine Heart Association (PHA) Baguio-Benguet Chapter at the Notre Dame de Chartres Hospital upon invitation of PHA-BBC president Dr. Justina Calibuso.

Calibuso said the undertaking is part of the PHA’s advocacy flagship project dubbed “CPR on Wheels and Wings towards a CPR-Ready Philippines 2021” which is a “nationwide massive promotion of hands-only CPR for the laymen along with the installation of AED (automated external defibrillator, a portable electronic device that automatically diagnoses the lifethreatening heart condition) in strategic public areas.”

Its goal is to transform every tourist establishment and the community into a CPR-ready destination.

“We are bent on clinching the CPRReady Philippines status in 2021 to keep pace with our Asian neighbors and Western allies that have been reaping the benefits of being CPR-prepared nations for years. Their citizens (as young as 8 years old and up) are CPRskilled and their strategic public places are equipped with AEDs,” Calibuso said.

To realize the goal, Councilor Datuin proposed an ordinance that will require all private and public establishments to provide basic life support services by employing personnel trained in CPR who can administer CPR and AED in the event a customer would require the same.

He said having CPR and AED ready personnel increase the chances of survivals of patients suffering from cardiac arrest.

The ordinance will also require government and private buildings to supply and maintain an AED device made available in cases of emergencies.

The City Health and Services Office (CHSO) will be mandated to issue policies or guidelines and conduct orientations to establishments for the implementation of the ordinance.

The proposed measure has been approved on first reading and referred to a committee for recommendation.