Defibrillators ‘should be’ put into housing estates, Kildare County Council hears

The provision of lifesaving defibrillators should form part of planning permission conditions for new housing estates. A Kildare County Council meeting heard recently a call for this equipment to be installed by the developers.

Cllr Mark Leigh said the necessity to have automated external defibrillators was highlighted by the high profile incident which occurred when Danish player Christian Eriksen collapsed during a Euro 2020 international soccer match last month.

“We want these in all residential areas and for them to be retrofitted,” Cllr Leigh told the meeting.

He pointed out that 70% of cardiac arrests happen at home.

And for every delay of one minute following an incident the patient’s chances of surviving fall at a rate of 10%.

Cllr Michael Coleman said that the council should contact individual developers to get this done and said a contractor in Celbridge has agreed to do this.

Cllr Chris Pender recalled that an AED was used to save the life of a person in Newbridge six weeks previously, while Cllr Aidan Farrelly said that provisions should be made to ensure that the equipment is maintained.

Cllr Nuala Killeen referred to instances where the code needed to access the equipment was not available and policy was needed to cover the issue of funding.