Employees as CPR lifesavers

Singapore - Employees who have a basic knowledge of cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) can be the difference between life and death for a colleague experiencing a heart attack.

While risk factors such as smoking, hypertension, diabetics, and a lack of exercise can lead to poor cardiac health, unexpected changes at work or job stress could also contribute to a heart attack. Hence, equipping employees with basic CPR skills would increase the victim's survival rate before medical help arrives, says Dr Olivier Lo, medical director for group corporate care services of International SOS Asia Pacific. "Proven to save lives, CPR is a life skill that everyone should know, just like swimming."

In his company, Dr Lo has made CPR training mandatory for all employees and automated external defibrillator (AED) are also placed on all company floors, making it a safe workplace. "We view this very strongly as we experienced an incident whereby a heart attack struck one of our employees in the London office and was saved by his colleague on their way to lunch."

While employees who attended CPR training gave positive feedback, Dr Lo says it was challenging to obtain maximum attendance for the sessions as many employees travel extensively and frequently. This has resulted in various time slots given so employees could take time off their work schedules to attend the training.

Dr Lo adds that the heads of departments and managers have helped set good examples by attending trainings themselves and enforcing their staff's attendance.

Here are some tips to perform basic CPR skills without an AED by Dr Lo.

1) Ensure safety of victim and yourself

2) Check responsiveness - "shake and shout": If responsive, check for injuries, put in recovery position then shout or phone or go for help

3) If no response, shout or phone or go for help, then open airway and check breathing; if not breathing, then leave the patient and go get help, and come back and give 30 chest compressions, then give two breaths and repeat 30 compressions and repeat