AIBU to disagree with PTA buying defibrillator for primary school?

[Babylon1]

That's it really.

I'm on the governing body at local primary school and the PTA have decided they are going to purchase a defibrillator for the first aid kit.

This is really down to one member of the PTA having suffered a terrible loss due to congenital heart defect which was undiagnosed in a child. NOT a child at this school I hasten to add.

Now, as a governing body, we have a wish list of what we would ideally like the PTA to help purchase, and at the moment we are prioritising interactive whiteboards, a new reading scheme and some new phonics materials - resources that will be used EVERY day by the pupils.

The PTA are insistent in buying the defibrillator ASAP, and I am equally insistent that we neither want/need it for the following reasons:

1. The likelihood of it EVER being used is hopefully very very slim

1. There is an ambulance station with trained medics less than 5 mins away at normal driving pace. On blues and twos an ambulance would/could be present inside of two mins.

1. There has been no consultation with staff, yet 5 of them would be expected to be happy to be trained to administer the defibrillator if it

was required.

1. There has been no consultation with parents to ascertain if they would be happy for their DCs to be defibrillated at school by a non-professional medic (I certainly wouldn't be)

Before I would be in the slightest happy about this, I want a demo from the company providing the equipment on how easy it is to use, bearing in mind it is a paediatric defibrillator.

I want to know who will make the decision that the defibrillator is required - ie who is going to diagnose the child with a failing heart?

What happens if/when it goes wrong? Will the administrator of the defibrillator be held responsible?

So am I being unreasonable?? Really appreciate your thoughts here as I need to feed back to governors at next meeting.

I work at a hospital, cleaning, and there are resus trollys on children's wards ( I know because I pull them out to clean behind them)

p.s. recent paed first aid training I did told me that AED defibs are suitable for children over 1. I'm not an expert so please don't take my word for it but there'll be plenty around who can tell you).

5madthings it was actually discussed at last mtg that long term it is the plan for every school to have one, though we don't know who is proposing to provide them and which budget they plan to use.

There are a lot of primary schools looking into buying defibs at the moment, and I can't be clear enough that it's not about the money and the costs, but more the safety to the children if it weren't administered correctly - though I'm getting now that that cannot happen with an automated device.

If you walked out a governor's meeting, went to a coffee shop, and discussed this issue with a friend who was a paramedic, you'd be more likely to breach confidentiality

How so?

More likely than putting unnecessary information on the world wide web?

Anyway, the OP has said it's all good and her GB and HT won't mind so it really doesn't matter does it?

Thank you summer, some more great info

We got a defib at work the other day, it cost about £1000. I don't think ( and hope) it will ever be used.

We had this issue of defibs brought up by a Mum at school. Her DDs have a heart condition which could cause cardiac arrest and need a defib. She quotes figures of something like 50 schools in the country have them. Our school is getting one, and until it arrives she takes in their one from home daily. One of her girls has a pacemaker so needing the defib is highly unlikely if her heart stops.

I don't think it's a necessary piece of equipment in a school but if anything did happen at least there is one there.

Agree with Summer. there's a lot of odd posts about 'identifying' people on MN lately, and being unprofessional - it's getting a bit ridiculous. It's perfectly reasonable to explain a situation to find out more about the questions that are going round in your head. Even if one of the PTA were reading it, the OP has said nothing derrogatory or insulting or upsetting on here.
The things raised have been really interesting.
I'd still come down on the side that YANBU OP. Terribly, terribly sad of course for the parent 'driving' this, and probably it is for want of not upsetting her that no-one has said - but how practical is this ? up to now.

I think it's a good idea to get one. It may be used rarely, if at all, but on the occasion that it might be used, then it saves lives. You might have an ambulance station near you, but it doesn't mean the ambulances are there waiting for your call. I have an ambulance station less than 2 mins away from me, but when I had problems with my home birth it took them nearly 2 hours to get to me. In part because of poor weather, and in part because they get deployed all over the county. I think you should suck it up and get one, hopefully it will never get used, but if it does then it would mean everything.

I think you'd be more likely to need to use it on a teacher or visitor to the school than a pupil IMO

Sorry Worra, hadn't seen your subsequent post and you're right it doesn't matter. But the point is that if you're in a local coffee shop then the person you're talking to will know exactly which school you're talking about, as they are local and know which school you are connected with, and can go off and discuss it with whomever they like - that could breach confidentiality. That's not the case on the web. Yes there's a chance that some people might read this and figure it out but it's actually pretty unlikely, even though we like to think that MN is ubiquitous. It's not. It's not unlikely that there are a number of schools in exactly the same situation as the OP's, including having had the unfortunate incident she describes. I'm sure that another member of the GB would be able to identify it, but since that person would already be 'in the know' that fact would not breach confidentiality.

All I'm trying to say is that we shouldn't beat the OP up for trying to get information or suggesting she could get into serious trouble for it. Perhaps it could have been done in a more anonymised way but it is helpful to understand the context to give useful advice. I hope that anyone in a similar situation would similarly seek to get advice and not be put off doing so through fears about issues like confidentiality.

Summer I'm not beating her but I was suggesting she could get kicked off her Governing Body by her local LA...and that's because she could - particularly if someone were to complain to the Head or if she (as she suggested) printed this thread off...that's all. I'm not trying to make her feel bad, I'm just reminding there that there are ways of asking questions that are more discreet IYSWIM.

Also, it's my understanding that a tiny percentage of Primary schools in the UK own this equipment.

IIRC, there is a MNer whose 5year old daughter went into cardiac arrest at primary school, and was kept alive by CPR, although suffered extensive brain damage, and the family have now moved to America where the little girl can get the beat treatment.

This MNer, who has been through it, advocates these machines in schools. They could save your own Childs life. That doesn't even compare to an interactive whiteboard to me.

The figures I thnk remember are 50 schools out of 80000 in the country, so very small percentage.

You just never know though do you? It's one of those things. Do you feel lucky or don't you? I thought I had the perfect lucky life where bad things just didn't happen, until my husband had a stroke last year and subsequently got diagnosed with heart problems and cancer the thing is, bad things do suddenly strike like a bolt from the blue. It's unlikely, but not impossible. I think it's important to have those things in place, especially at a school. Ok, hopefully it's unlikely you would ever need it, but really you just don't know. Personally I would love my dd's school to have one ( well actually they do) just in case the hand of bad luck fell down and struck somebody there. But I obviously am very biased

Babylon you might get some help here from other Governors if you haven't already tried them remember to be discreet

www.school-governor.net/e107/index.php/forum

Defibs (AEDs) are amazing and definitely idiot proof - the Cardiac Science ones talk to you, get you to do CPR before administering a shock (and beep a rhythm to keep to), they can make a massive difference to survival odds - approx figures from ambulance service friends are that overall 10% of those who have a cardiac arrest survive, with a defib within 5mins it is over 50%.

Cardiac Science would be a good company to check out, and the charity Heartbeat UK may be able to help you with funding.

oh, Lovebox. Yes, I follow her blog. Will see if I can find it.

Just wanted to say, it's not PTA money, the money comes from the parents.

I know I would rather have the parents' money spent on educational needs, seeing as it's, y'know, a school.

YABU, but I think you've worked that out already.

You are asking a lot of specific questions though about details and statistics. Surely you should do some proper research rather than asking people on a chat room. Yes there have been some good opinions given, and accounts of when they have been used successfully, but that's all anecdotal. Whilst there has been some genuinely good and useful information given here I would do my own research before I went quoting it to anyone at a meeting. Do you really expect randoms on a chat room to know in percentage terms how successful they are and which models work work for kids and adults.

And to who asked do we all have one in our homes. Really? I'm pretty sure most people don't even have fire extinguishers in their homes.

Haven't read all the posts but I train lay people to use defibs and as a lay responder I use one myself.

Of your reasons not to have one
1). Yes, it is extremely unlikely you will need one ever whether for a child or parent
2). You can't rely on an ambulance being at the station when you need one, and anyway every minute saved before defibrillation significantly increases the chances of survival. Studies siggest by nearly 10% per minute saved
3). Where a public access defib has been installed we've never had any trouble finding volunteers to be trained
4). Automatic defibs are foolproof: you just put them on,the machine decides whether to shock or not and will only shock if it detects a very specific heart rhythm. They are designed to be used with no training by anyone over 12 or with an iq of 90. (figures from the USA). You just turn them on and follow the instructions.

Having said that a defib is useless if it isn't preceeded by early recognition and early CPR. Personally if I was worried about needing a defib I'd be even more worried about staff not being able to recognise a cardiac arrest and not knowing how to do CPR and this is where I would focus my attention and training.

I suggest you phone someone like the community defibrillation officer at your ambulance trust or st john ambulance or the British heart foundation for reassurance. You really have nothing to worry about on the safety front: remember, there are defibs scattered all over the place nowadays for people to use in an emergency.

But if it's a question of scarce resources, you Might find your ambulance trust prepared to help with the cost,or the British heart foundation give grants.

But to be honest I'm not sure it's what I would spend the money on.

I can verify that any fool can use one of these effectively and without risk to the 'patient', by offering myself as an example :)

I work in a social care setting and was trained in basic first aid but was not yet trained in the use of the difibrillator when I was one of two staff on site and one of our clients suffered a cardiac arrest. My colleague was not yet trained either - we had just gotten the equipment and the training was scheduled for later in the month.

Of course we did what you always do in a medical emergency, and rang 999 first. I think the idea that having the defib on site would somehow get in the way of that is a bit ridiculous. Nobody's going to forget to call for help!

Colleague was first to know of the collapse (alerted by another client). She shouted to me that xxx wasn't breathing, and she started with rescue breaths and chest compressions. I rang 999 and grabbed the defib off the wall on my way to join her. By the time she finished her first set of compressions, I had the defib out, had looked at the VERY, VERY SIMPLE TO FOLLOW drawings, put them in the right place, and turned the thing on.

The machine told me exactly what to do every step of the way. Instructions like "scanning for pulse - do not touch patient" and "no pulse detected - administer shock" - which meant just pressing a button on the front of the machine, nothing mysterious or difficult. It took all the guesswork, panic, and self-doubt out of the equation, by telling us exactly what to do and when. If we hadn't already known how to give chest compressions, we would have been able to do them anyway because of the simple drawings and instructions.

The man had a weak pulse by the time the ambulance crew arrived, and they took over and took him to hospital. It had been an overdose, and the shocks we gave him bought him enough time to get a shot of Naloxone from the paramedics, which saved his life. I know that in the short term he recovered well enough that we were told when he was discharged from hospital, but we didn't see him again so I don't know how he got on in the longer term. He was only in his twenties :( . I hope he's somewhere getting better.

THIS isn't the exact model that I've used but it's similar, and if you zoom in on the picture you can see how basic and simple-to-follow the instructions are.

To answer Stealth's question, I think that in the foreseeable future they will be like smoke alarms and carbon monoxide detectors, and everyone will have one in the cupboard for emergencies. I am seriously considering buying one for our house, though the cost is a bit prohibitive at the moment. It's one of a few things I'm saving for.

Some defibs have paediatric pads available. So you select the appropriate pads depending on whether adult/child.
Another cost to bear in mind is regular servicing, battery replacement, and pad replacement (they have expiry dates) in addition to ongoing training.
That said they are very simple to use.
I live next to ambulance station. The ambulance is very busy and at base less than 1/4 of the day I would say.
Yabu on most of your points, but other purchases are higher priority then yanbu. You are more likely to use it on a member of the public than a child.

having used a defib and having seen it work i can safely say YABU.

just because you have an ambulance station a few mins away does not mean that your ambulance would come from there.

defibs work. ive used them. ive seen them bring someone back.

i can and have done CPR, but it does not bring a person back - there is only an 8% chance of this happening through CPR alone - all you are doing with CPR is maintaining an oxygen supply to the brain while someone gets there with a defib.
they save lives. they really do - i work in the emergancy services and i am happy to use one, happy to be trained in their use (they are sooo easy to use) and if you saw one work you would probably change your mind.

Any LA who kicks someone off a GB for asking this sort of question is nuts. The thread simply is not in contravention of anyone's confidentiality and is in the service of a public good. I say this as a GB member who has a reputation for being troublesome in the LA (not been kicked off yet though) and a DH who is a lawyer with some speciality in this area. This probably identifies me.... Um. Actually it probably doesn't. I'm very happy to risk it.

I don't have a strong view either way on the issue at hand. It is a difficult one. My personal opinion would be that it is worth the money (good idea to do a specific funding drive for this) but I can see how tricky the call is, and I think getting such a wide range of opinions is a very valuable exercise. Yes it is unlikely that it will ever be used. But this is a good thing! I hope my life insurance policy won't be needed anytime in the next 10/20/30/40 years but I keep on paying the premiums... I certainly wouldn't have a problem with anyone using a defib on either of my DCs. It is the only way of kickstarting a heart that has stopped (and if you stop breathing, e.g. because of choking, that is what will happen). CPR is a temporary solution only and will always require a defib. You have 3 minutes after breathing first stops before brain damage/death occurs... [disclaimer: not a medical professional, this info from first aid training only. Do correct if it is wrong!].

Sorry, IF other purchases are a higher priority