Bill to put defibrillators in senior centers




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Bill to put defibrillators in senior centers

By Adrienne P. Samuels, the St. Petersburg Times

January 12, 2004

A bill is in the works that would place an automated defibrillator in every senior center in Florida .

"It could have a tremendous effect on people," said state Rep. Tom Anderson, R-Dunedin, who plans to file the bill this week. "Statistics that I've seen indicate that 250,000 a year die of cardiac arrest. And so, this could be of benefit to those 250,000."

Anderson wants the state's Department of Elder Affairs to oversee the placement of about 270 of the devices, which cost $2,000 a piece. He wants the state to pay half the cost, bringing the total proposed spending to $270,000.

Participating senior centers would have to come up with the other $1,000, which Anderson hopes would be paid for by their local governments or a club, such as the Kiwanis or Rotary.

An automatic defibrillator is a piece of electric equipment "smart" enough to know if a person in cardiac arrest needs a shock to get their heart pumping again.

It then can shock the person with the touch of a button, but it will refuse to shock someone with a heartbeat. Last year, such a machine saved the life of former gubernatorial candidate Bill McBride, who passed out while exercising at a local gym.

If not for the defibrillator, the precious minutes it took for paramedics to reach McBride might have resulted in his death, said Charles Sand, president-elect for the board of directors for the Florida Puerto Rico branch of the American Heart Association.

"This is just another way that will support getting more (defibrillators) out in our community, especially in a place where there's more incidence of cardiac arrest," said Sand, who is also an emergency room physician at St. Joseph 's Hospital in Tampa .

In the past two years, seven people in the Tampa Bay area have been saved by the use of the automatic devices. Between Pinellas and Hillsborough counties, there are about 700 devices housed in public spaces, said Sands, who says the AHA also hopes to put them inside 11,000 police patrol cars in Florida.

Many urban centers already have the devices, said Cathy Brown, president of the Florida Association of Senior Centers.

It's the rural areas, such as Polk and Pasco counties, that will need help raising the funds to finance half the cost of the devices, she said.

"We're a silent part of the aging network because we don't really receive a lot of funds from the state," Brown said by telephone from St. Augustine .

"Our concern, as always in these tight budgetary times, is money."

Some centers in St. Petersburg , Tarpon Springs, Largo and Clearwater have had defibrillators for one year now. No one has yet had a reason to use them, but all say they are a good idea.

"We do a lot of aerobics here for seniors, and I've got 150 seniors working out in the gym, and it's possible somebody could have a heart attack," said Warren Ankerberg, senior program coordinator for the Largo Community Center . "We don't ever want to use it, but we have it here, and it might save someone's life."

The center in Tarpon Springs hasn't had to use theirs either, Margie Pritchard said.

"It's an important piece of equipment that every senior center should have," Pritchard said.

Heart disease is the leading cause of death by disease in the United States . Cardiac arrest and strokes are caused by heart disease.

Defibrillators placed in senior centers would help keep seniors healthy, said Lisa Meyers with the Department of Elder Affairs in Tallahassee .

"If a center is interested in having those, we can see how that could be a helpful thing," said Meyers. "A center's first line of defense is always going to be calling 911, but it does provide another step."