European Resuscitation Academy Ireland
CFR Ireland and the European Resuscitation Academy, funded and supported by PHECC, were delighted to host the first ever European Resuscitation Academy (ERA) in Ireland in November. The event was run over two days on the 10th and 11th of November at Palmerstown House, Naas, Co Kildare.
The aim of the ERA was to facilitate a process to improve the survival from out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) in Ireland. The main focus of the event was the “
10 Steps for Improving Survival from Sudden Cardiac Arrest” which is a concept developed and shared by Seattle King County and the European Resuscitation Academy. To do this, we invited key people from organisations that can influence the treatment of OHCA in Ireland. On the second day, representatives from Community First Responder schemes nationwide were invited, as they are ideally placed in their own communities to strengthen the first three links in the “chain of survival”.
On Friday 10th of November we were delighted to host representatives from many of the organisations involved in OHCA. We were thrilled to have Martin Dunne, NAS, open the event and even HSE Director General Tony O’Brien (a community first responder in his own locality) took some time to visit the event and address the audience.
On Saturday the 11th of November we were again delighted to host representatives from over sixty CFR schemes across Ireland, with over one hundred people in attendance.
On both days we had fantastic speakers from the ERA and key organisations in Ireland. Our overseas speakers included Matt Duschl and Roman Burkart from ERA, David Bywater from the Scottish Ambulance Service and Lisa MacInnes from Save a Life for Scotland. It was fantastic to hear other countries experiences and learn from them as they did from us. We also had some key people involved in Out of Hospital Cardiac Arrest in Ireland speak and as always gave excellent insight into their areas of expertise. The speakers included Jacqueline Burke PHECC, Brigid Sinnott IRISH HEART, David Hennelly NAS, Michael Quinn & Siobhan Masterson OHCAR as well as David Menzies and John Fitzgerald CFR IRELAND.
We believe that this event has increased awareness of OHCA and now everyone can help strengthen the “chain of survival”. As Ireland has already adopted several of the first "10 Steps", we look forward to future events in 2018, focusing on the steps eleven to twenty.
