Can you save a life? Health and safety training for employees is important, but a CPR course is critical. Saving a life is only one reason why you should introduce a CPR course in your workplace. Accidents happen at work, some of them fatal. Time is the most critical factor, between the time the accident took place and the arrival of the emergency services. Having the skill and confidence to perform CPR while waiting for the emergency services can mean the difference between life and death. It is reason enough to introduce CPR courses into your workplace. But there are other benefits too!
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What is CPR?
From a medical perspective, Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR) is an emergency procedure that combines chest compressions and artificial ventilation in an effort to restore blood circulation and breathing in a person who is in cardiac arrest. This also helps keep brain function intact until further medical assistance can be provided.
5 Benefits of conducting a CPR Course in your workplace:
CPR course will help you save a life
CPR courses are a vital life tool. By far the most important reason to conduct a CPR course
in your workplace is to equip your employees with the skills they need to save a life, when and where it matters most – at the scene of the accident. CPR is also a valuable skill that employees can use outside the workplace, which makes it a skill worth learning and one that staff will want to invest their time in. By teaching employees, the correct way to handle medical emergencies at the workplace, you further reduce workplace panic and empower staff to take control of emergency situations.
Build employee confidence
The impact of conducting a simple CPR course has far-reaching effects, especially on a
personal and interpersonal level. By learning CPR, employees will not panic when they see someone suffering from a heart attack or that goes into cardiac arrest. Employees will become more confident in handling emergency situations; thanks to the training and first-hand experience they would have gained on a CPR course.
Boost employee morale
We all know how important employee morale is to employee productivity. When team morale is high, productivity increases and vice versa. A CPR course not only imparts valuable knowledge and practical skills that employees can use every day, but they also tell employees that your company is concerned about their welfare. Ensuring a supported health and safe environment will ultimately lead to enhanced well-being and improved staff morale. It’s a small effort for such a big reward.
Learn more than just CPR
A good CPR course teaches more than just learning how to apply CPR. It gives employees the necessary skills needed to keep a person alive in case of a cardiac arrest. That means being able to identify a cardiac arrest, as well as knowing when to apply CPR and how to keep the blood flowing. Most CPR courses also offer vital skills beyond conducting CPR on adults or children. These include what to do when someone is choking, how to activate emergency services, how to use an automated defibrillator (AED), and many more life-saving skills. A credible CPR course will always be accredited with the Resuscitation Council of Southern Africa (RCSA), giving you the assurance that you are imparting skills that are standardized and approved by a recognised governing body.
CPR courses don’t require much downtime
Four hours is the average time needed to conduct a CPR course at your place of work,
making it a very manageable activity to conduct on a regular basis. A very small investment for a life-saving outcome!
The Importance of CPR
Although advances in emergency cardiac care continue to improve the chances of surviving cardiac arrest, cardiac arrest remains a leading cause of death in many parts of the world.
The most common cause of death from a heart attack in adults is a disturbance in the electrical rhythm of the heart called ventricular fibrillation. Ventricular fibrillation can be treated, but it requires applying an electrical shock to the chest called defibrillation.
If a defibrillator is not readily available, brain death could occur in less than 10 minutes.
A way of buying time until a defibrillator (AED) becomes available is to perform cardiopulmonary resuscitation or CPR. The earlier you give CPR to a person in cardiopulmonary arrest (no breathing, no heartbeat), the greater the chance of a successful resuscitation. By performing CPR, the affected individual receives oxygenated blood flowing to the heart and brain until a defibrillator becomes available.
CPR is one link in what the American Heart Association calls the “chain of survival.”
The chain of survival is a series of actions that, when performed in sequence, will give a person having a heart attack the greatest chance of survival.
The first link is an immediate recognition of cardiac arrest and activation of the emergency response system by calling emergency services.
The second link in the chain of survival is to perform CPR until a defibrillator becomes available.
The third link is to make use of an AED
Once the EMS unit arrives, the next link in the chain of survival is effective advanced life support care. This involves administering medications, using special breathing devices, and providing additional defibrillation shocks if needed. CPR can buy the patient the time they need until advance medical paramedics arrive at the scene.
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Absolute Health Services (AHS) offer accredited Health and Safety (H&S) training, ensuring that our clients receive current, professional and quality training. All our training instructors are paramedics registered with the Health Professions Council of South Africa, and have extensive practical operational experience and have specialised in First Aid, Cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), Firefighting and H&S training. Our training courses contain the latest theoretical course content and extensive practical content and scenario training, thereby ensuring both theoretical and practical exposure. Our intention is to establish a national Health and Safety training network and footprint, enabling our clients to access our training network anywhere in the country. We know that without the support of our clients our business would not exist, so we are committed to offering a professional, client-focused, high quality and cost-effective service.
