HEALTH FORUM

PARAMEDICS and hospital staff in Greater Manchester have scooped a top award
after saving lives by speeding up treatment for heart attack victims. In
the life-or-death battle against the clock for a patient gripped by a heart
attack, ambulance and hospital staff have come up with new ways to save time
and give patients a life-saving drug earlier.

The new techniques pioneered by staff at Greater Manchester Ambulance
Service (GMAS) and Rochdale Infirmary have already dramatically boosted the
chances of survival for heart attack patients, for the sooner they get the
drug, the more of the heart that can be saved from permanent damage.

Now the team has become the first to win a new national award for its care
and speedy treatment of heart attack victims. By using special monitoring
equipment in the ambulance to get the patient ready for treatment and
calling ahead to alert Rochdale Infirmarys heart attack team, paramedics
reckon they have speeded up both diagnosis and treatment of patients. The
governments target is for 75 per cent of patients to be given the
life-saving drug thrombolysis within 60 minutes of a 999 call. But hospital
staff and paramedics have been working so hard that 95 per cent of heart
attack victims are getting the clot-busting drug within an hour, saving
countless lives.

GMAS Paramedic Helen Ayers says it has given patients a fighting chance of
survival. It has saved lives without a doubt because it is a battle against
time for a cardiac patient, she said. The sooner they get the drug, the
less the heart dies.

GMAS chief executive John Burnside said all ambulance crews would now put
the new techniques into practice. He said: When ambulance crews and A&E
departments work together in this way, it can only be of benefit to the
patient and increase their chances of survival. The project has now been
extended to cover the whole of Greater Manchester.

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