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.

YANBU. You've set out the reasons for not having one very clearly. In an ideal world, yes, all schools would have one, just in case, but we're not in an ideal world and schools have to prioritise what they spend money on. Having new books or an interactive whiteboard would provide a lot of benefit (I'm quite surprised you haven't got those already, actually - I thought all primary schools had been given funding for them under the last government.)

The chances of someone having some kind of attack that needs a defibrillator are very small, and the sad truth is that in real life defibrillators have a fairly low success rate. Much better, as someone else said, to make sure that staff are up to date with CPR training - and also that they know what to do in the event of other, more likely events, such as a child choking or having an epileptic fit or asthma attack.

If we stick to short term, what are the biggest killers of children of primary school age? I'd suspect accidents maybe followed by infection. What can the school, or should the school do about those?

defibs do not restart the heart. they shock the heart back to a normal rhythm from an abnormal one.

i don't know the statistics but certainly a lot of sudden death syndromes in younger people involve the heart simply stopping, as was the case for my friend. Defib alone would not have helped.

actually I know the biggest killer of primary children (not a cause but a correlation) - deprivation - more likely to be ill, more likely to have an accident :(

Tyler they shock it from an abnormal rhythm that does not make the heart beat, into one that does make it beat, thereby restarting it.

If the PTA are raising money they should have some say over how it is spent. The school can make suggestions, but it is all voluntary.

Yes agreed, and as a member of that PTA the OP can raise logical objections. Yet she has been told YABU YABU YABU which is not on

and no one has responded to my point about there likely being ways to spend the money to address the things that do kill children

She isn't being unreasonable -she has some good points-especially the willingness of staff to be trained. However she needs a diplomatic meeting otherwise they are quite likely to say 'get your own interactive whiteboard'.

nothing in the OP led me to believe she wasn't being measured or considered.
But apparently for things that have a chance (however large or small) of saving a child's life, YABU to question

defibrillation will not restart the heart from a state of asystole, despite what casualty might portray - shocking people who are flat lining.

aed's in particular are only useful in a limited range of situations

She only needs the one point-are the staff willing to be trained and would they be willing to use it? If not then it is pointless getting it.

So is she not allowed to say "if we want to save childrns lives, there may be better ways to spend this money, shall we explore?"

Debrilators can restart the heart, they are not just for abnormal heart rhythms.

I can't remember exactly but I think your survival rate drops by 15% for every min your heart isnt beating. even when CPR is being administered. So the quicker you have access to the defib the better the chance of survival

There are lots of other points after will anyone use it-which is pretty basic!

Think the money should go on the material you mentioned. Why not have a fundraiser just for a defibrillator?

yanbu, I think they are usually a waste of money; I wouldn't mind if they cost £10 or even £100, but that amount of money (£1000+) is better spent elsewhere. I feel folk have lost perspective after the public collapse of the footballer.

How long are they good for? 20+ years? I hope so, anyway. Do they need annual maintenance or checks or charging or replacement batteries after a while? Might need budgeting for, too, not like the fire service doing it for free/cheap.

i must add that i'm trained to use an aed and they do have a place. I'm just not sure that a primary school is that place. Screening would be more useful

i think whiteboards are a waste of money. defibrillators? might as well take a thousand pounds in cash and use it for a bonfire. will be more use.

Hmm I'm not sure I'd go that far! But a large proportion of these children will be obese when they start secondary, what could Tje money be spent on to help with that? Obesity will eventually kill a proportion of them.

Babylon, the local village Catholic primary near me (about 140 on roll) is considering this - is this by any chance the same school? (Yorkshire...)

I think YANBU based on many of the measured responses above. You could work these into a clear risk assessment, and the decision to purchase should be based on that. I would say that given the low probability of a cardiac arrest occurring in a child, and the proximity of the ambulance station the assessment would be that this would not be a sensible spend. I agree that a better use of the money would be to provide comprehensive first aid training for the staff, and to keep this updated on a regular basis.

And to the poster that said that £1500 was not a massive amount for a school, well I would beg to differ - it is!

it covers anyone who come into the school, teachers, parents, inspectors and any other adult that comes into a school.

hopefully no one will ever had the need for it.

Most of the staff at schools are first aid trained. We have to attend a 1 day training every three years and at least two other members of staff have to attend a two day training.

I would be expected to do CPR/ use an epipen on a child or other member of staff if required so I would have no problem using defibrillator. Having said that I don't feel cofident that I would remember how to do CPR

Sorry if I am repeating here. Not read every post.

Children are much more likely to suffer respiratory arrest rather than cardiac arrest. This means that a defibrillator would be useless. They would generally require mouth-to-mouth to ensure the Oxygen keeps reaching the brain with chest compressions to help stimulate the circulation.

I think YANBU as the amount of times this equipment would be required would be extremely minimal and there is more of a risk of staff changing/not keeping training up-to-date than there is of a child actually needing the defibrillator.

I realsie there are rare cases where it would be required but will people really have all the expertise to understand how and when exactly to use it?

Leave it to the professionals - the teachers have enough to worry about.

And yes, I am sorry for anyone who has lost a child. It is horrific. I am a childrens nurse. I have been part of failed resuscitation attempts. I just don't think a defibrillator would be the miracle reviver that people think it will be in many cases.

If the PTA is set on buying this, and the governors don't want them to, can anyone stop them? Just interested in what the legal situation is - if they've raised the money, can they spend it on whatever they want? And is this just the PTA committee or have they taken a vote among the parent body?

I think if I was the OP, I'd also be inclined to set out the alternatives: either we buy the defibrillator, which will have this benefit (ie negligible), or we buy x number of books, which will have these benefits, or the interactive whiteboard, which will have such-and-such benefits, so people can understand clearly the choice they're making.