Chronic/NCDs &Community &Training Bill Brieger | 08 Jan 2022 06:04 am
Freedom Park Lagos Hosts Revolving Hearts Foundation CPR Training & AED Presentation
In their 2021 presentation at the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, “Hands-only CPR Training Program of Secondary School Students in Ibadan, Nigeria”, Olufunso Odunukan and colleagues of the Revolving Heart Foundation mentioned that plans were underway to expand the training. Below, they share their recent public training in Lagos, Nigeria.
Freedom Park Lagos played host to the Revolving Hearts Foundation (RHF) – a non-governmental organisation which advocates Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR) trainings and more of the presence/ use of Automated External Defibrillator (AED) in public places in Nigeria (and by extension Africa). The foundation represented by its visionary Dr. Olufunso Odunukan, an interventional cardiologist based in the United States, took a wide cadre of staff – from management to the most junior level, and vendor representatives through a detailed and practical session of administering CPR in a bid to save more lives and reduce loss due to not-quick-enough basic interventions in the face of a cardiac arrest or someone passing out due to a heart attack.
The NGO also presented an AED to the management of Freedom Park and in the same training showed how to set up the device following previously programmed instructions on the gadget. After that, with the use of mannequins and simulated AED materials, the RHF representative Dr. Odunukan took the participants through a very hands-on and practical experience of deploying CPR in a model situation. There was a video presentation that detailed what to do in the event a person suffers a cardiac arrest in a public place, at home, on the sidewalk, on stage or similar places.
The participants who included a wide array – cleaners, vendor workers, senior staff and middle management all gave good feedback as to the extent and impact that the training would have, even beyond the four walls of the Park. They also participated in a skit of a proper situation where they might need to take charge or be part of helping in an emergency situation, especially with the benefit of the lessons they had picked up in the training.
Dr. Odunukan equally advocated that this shouldn’t be a one-off session as the training could be replicated from time to time, so that everyone is prepared and savvy in the proper manner to be able to intervene and save lives, at least as a first aid in such situations, until professional medical assistance arrives. After the latter, on behalf of RHF, he presented the AED to the management of Freedom Park represented by the C.O.O. Ms. Iyabo Aboaba who gladly accepted the device and reiterated the necessity of such gesture with the pledge to put it to good use, in line with the vision of the NGO to save more lives.
The training which lasted about 1hour 30 minutes ended with FAQs and an interactive and enlightening session based on the model skit and how to replicate an efficient process in the event of a real-life situation.