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State Farm, Canadian Head Office, Aurora, Ontario 1010006 Darryl R Demille Ins Agcy Ltd Darryl Demille CFP Oakville 905-842-1020 www.darryldemille.com Stacey Sutherland Oakville 905-339-3276 www.insuranceinoakville.com Andrew Heideman Oakville 905-829-0018 www.andrewheideman.ca Stephen Ostapchuk Mississauga 905-238-5643 www.stephenostapchuk.ca Angelo Gualtieri Oakville 905-257-7773 www.angelogualtieri.com Daniel Durst Oakville 905-847-1898 www.danieldurst.com Deborah E. Bartucci Oakville 905-337-3276 www.autoinsuranceoakville.ca Sponsored by: 11 Friday , D ecem ber 17, 2010 O A KVILLE BEA V ER w w w .o akvillebeaver .co m directly to Mississaugas Trillium Hospital and Burlington patients are transported to Hamilton General Hospital. Haltons director of emergency medical services Greg Sage said about 50 per cent of cardiac arrest cases in the region are treated by paramedics. Of those cases in which a shockable heart rhythm exists, meaning a patient could be treated with defibrillation, the survival rate is 39 per cent nine per cent higher than what Cheskes describes as a very high rate. The survival rates in Halton are increasing, according to Cheskes, due to more bystanders performing CPR. The odds of survival increases by four times (with CPR). Theres very little out there that increases survival by that high of a percentage. The region is rolling out two new programs to get more residents comfortable with CPR. Four Halton high schools Burlington Central, M.M. Robinson, Aldershot and T.A. Blakelock are currently partaking in the CPR Anytime program. One group goes through the traditional three-hour CPR train- ing program and another group uses the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada CPR Anytime DVD, a 45-minute course. After eight months, the region will test the effectiveness of the com- pressed course versus the traditional one. The thought is the more we can reduce the time it takes to teach CPR, the more peo- ple will be inclined to take the training, said Sage. This spring, Halton paramedics will test a new guideline from the American Heart Association, which removes the requirement for members of the general public to adminis- ter mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to cardiac arrest patients, and rather, focus on chest compressions. In the past theres been a stigma around mouthtomouth, said Sage. The thought is people will be more inclined to do CPR now that mouth-to-mouth has been taken out of the equation. Pilot program boosts Haltons cardiac arrest success rate By Christina Commisso METROLAND WEST MEDIA GROUP If youre going to go into cardiac arrest, statistics show its best to do so in Halton. The region is ahead of the pack in terms of cardiac arrest survival rates and health profes- sionals are attributing much of that success to a pilot program which sees heart attack or car- diac arrest patients bypass emergency rooms and go straight to the operating table. This is the future of what helps survival of heart attacks and cardiac arrest, said Dr. Sheldon Cheskes from the Sunnybrook-Osler Centre for Prehospital Care during Tuesdays regional health and social services meeting. The program sets a goal of 90 minutes or less from paramedic contact to angioplasty surgery. The procedure sees the widening of a narrow or obstructed blood vessel by using an empty balloon to pass through the heart ves- sel, then inflating it to crush the fatty deposits and open up the vessel. Cheskes said each 30-minute delay in opening up the blocked vessel, increases the patients chances of death by 7.5 per cent. Few systems have been able to achieve a con- tact time of less than 90 minutes, he said. This makes Halton an exception to the rule. By bypassing the emergency department and heading straight to the cardiac catheteri- zation lab, Halton cases average 70 minutes between EMS contact and surgery, shaving 37 minutes off the average pre-bypass time. I wouldnt say were leaders, were world-lead- ers in this process, said Cheskes. Once getting to a hospital, patients who went to the emergency department took 83 minutes to get the angioplasty surgery, while those who went straight to the cardiac catheterization lab took 35 minutes. Even more outstanding is we did this despite increasing our travelling distance by 50 per cent, Cheskes explained. Whereas patients used to be treated at the closest hospital, now patients from Oakville, Milton and Halton Hills are all transported A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words Early Detection Saves Lives Wednesday, January 19th, 2011 By appointment only. 905.845.ROOT (7668) 1525 Cornwall Rd. Unit 6 Oakville www.rootofhealth.ca For further information contact kelly@avitaintegrativehealth.ca Restoring Inner Balance... A Division of Root of Health BREAST THERMOGRAPHY CLINIC DAY