By Rosalind Russell – Nickel Belt MPP France Gelinas wants to see public AEDs registered and is reaching out to the Minister of Health to have the registry established.
She says in 2020, Bill 141, the Defibrillator Registration and Public Access Act, became law in Ontario adding it mandates the province to ask the owners of public AEDs to register their devices in a provincial database.
Gelinas says this is important since it allows 911 dispatch services to guide callers to the closest AED when someone has a heart attack.
However, she says the provincial government has not created the database detailing what she considers a vital link in emergency care and in the saving of thousands of lives.
Gelinas adds Sudbury Transit has installed automated external defibrillators (AEDs) on all conventional and specialized transit buses while Essex-Windsor EMS is using an app to map the publicly accessible automated external defibrillators.
She says she has sent a letter to Minister Sylvie Jones outlining her concerns and is hoping to receive a response soon.
She points out St. Michael’s Hospital shared with the Standing Committee on Social Policy that up to eight thousand people a year experience sudden cardiac arrest in Ontario and only 10% of those people survive, adding using an AED early can boost survival rates from a baseline of around 10% up to 40% or 50%.
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