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“SAVE A LIFE: 100 PERCENT RESUSCITATION” AT THE ORTENAU HOSPITAL’S SCHOOL HEALTH ACADEMY
About 720 school students from various grades took part in this series of events specially designed for young adults by Ortenau Hospital (more information at http://www.ortenau-gesundheitswelt.de/gesundheitsakademie/). The events were held in February and March in Offenburg, Lahr, and Ettenheim. As well as interesting medical talks about health topics, the school students who were taking part also learned about theoretical and practical aspects of how to save people’s lives when a cardiac arrest happens. This was the first time the Ortenau Hospital has included the nationwide campaign on “Kids Save Lives: 100 Percent Resuscitation” in its programme.
In addition to Lahr and Offenburg, the Ortenau Hospital’s series of talks was held in Ettenheim for the first time, with students from Ettenheim’s August Ruf Education Centre attending the events and also the resuscitation course. An educational partnership between Ortenau Hospital in Lahr-Ettenheim and the August Ruf Education Centre has already been in place for several years already. The school’s head teacher, Beate Ritter, said she was pleased that the school was able to strengthen this partnership further through the health academy for school students. “The talks are very specific and practical and they give the students a new perspective from the experts’ point of view.” This was something students would always be able to benefit from, she said.
The Ortenau Hospital was also pleased that the collaboration had been so successful. Its value was already becoming clear in connection with resuscitation in particular: “The survival rate for people with cardiovascular arrest is very low, because a lack of oxygen supply — particularly to the brain and heart — already leads to very severe damage even inside only a few minutes. Resuscitation measures can save life, but they have to be started straight away, and therefore usually by laypeople,” explained Dr. Susanne Löffner, the anesthetist who along with her team was running the resuscitation course for 92 school students in tenth grade. “Studies have shown that children and young adults are quite capable of carrying out this type of cardiovascular resuscitation and are much less inhibited about starting it. So it’s urgently important to familiarize school students with the topic and give them the skills and confidence they need, with regular practice events,” she added.
