World Restart A Heart Day highlights importance of CPR

Every year, the International Liason Committee of Resuscitation (ILCOR) celebrates World Restart a Heart Day (WRAH) to create awareness around the importance of knowing CPR.

The European Restart a Heart Day was founded with the support of the European parliament and takes place on October 16 every year.

Traditionally, the NSRI would honour the day by competing to train as many people as possible on the day in Bystander CPR. Last year, they taught 10 000 people how to do bystander CPR during Restart a Heart week. Unfortunately, this year, due to COVID they will not be able to do much face-face training.

This year, the NSRI is partnering with the Resuscitation Council of South Africa(RCSA) to raise awareness of bystander CPR, which is when one assists someone in need with chest compressions to manually keep the heart pumping. The international WRAH slogan for 2020 is “Your two hands can save a life”.

World-wide, there has been an increase in out of hospital Cardiac arrest and a decrease in bystander CPR, the assumption being that people are not going to hospitals and clinics to see to their primary healthcare needs out of fear of getting COVIC-19 and secondly, because performing CPR on a COVID-19 positive patient comes with extreme risk.

RCSA and the AHA have released COVID-19 CPR ALGORITHMS that highlight the importance of PPE and how the general public can “safely” perform hands-only CPR while waiting on trained personal to arrive.

Learn how to do CPR here: CPREveryone

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Picture: Pixabay