Copyright 2006 The New Mexican
By DIANA HEIL
The Santa Fe New Mexican (New Mexico)
State law requires medical doctor to oversee training on defibrillators
Device: Parks department working on solving the problem
The city of Santa Fe needs a doctor.
Over the past six years, the city has spent thousands of dollars on four heart defibrillators for public recreation centers. But the life-saving equipment used to revive people when they go into cardiac arrest is in storage, and nobody is allowed to use it, said Bill Rougemont, acting director of the city’s Parks and Recreation Department.
The equipment is in mothballs because a 1999 state law requires facilities to have a medical director oversee the training and use of the equipment. The city currently does not have anyone to serve in that role, Rougemont said.
“That’s depressing to hear of health clubs locking them up,” said Eric Martinez, a spokesman for the American Heart Association in New Mexico who is trained to use the computerized devices. “I can save someone’s life with it.”
The Parks and Recreation Department is working on solving the problem. Rougemont said he tried unsuccessfully to get free medical oversight from the Santa Fe Fire Department, but now is looking into other options.
The history of the problem goes back about six years.
Assistant Fire Chief Randy Neumann said he helped the Genoveva Chavez Community Center select a defibrillator to buy under the supervision of the fire department’s medical director, who was “happy to get the program going” at no cost. Chavez Center employees got trained, and the program ran smoothly for a while. But Neumann said the recreation center didn’t keep up-to-date on training, and the program fizzled out.
The city bought three more defibrillators about a year and a half ago for Fort Marcy Complex and other recreational facilities, Rougemont said. But the lack of someone to oversee the program means those machines can’t be used either.
Neumann said the city’s current medical director, Dr. Eric Kraska, is already overburdened with duties related to the 115-member fire department.
“He basically, in my opinion, has too much on his plate just taking care of us,” Neumann said Friday.
The city’s former medical director said she doesn’t think overseeing the program would be too much of a burden. “I don’t understand why (parks and recreation) couldn’t make an arrangement with the city fire department,” said Dr. Laura Kay, who now works for Santa Fe County. “When I was the city medical director, I did do that.”
Kay said she charges about $1,000 a year to oversee defibrillator programs in private clubs, but she thinks the service should be free for cities and counties under their medical directors.
Neumann recommends that the Parks and Recreation Department contract with an emergency-room doctor at St. Vincent Regional Medical Center. But that would cost money the city doesn’t want to spend.
Life savers
Having a heart defibrillator on hand, and someone trained to use it, can mean the difference between life and death.
If someone goes into cardiac arrest on the treadmill — slumps to the floor, breathless and without a heartbeat — that person is likely to die unless treated within minutes, according to the American Heart Association.
An ambulance or fire truck often arrives too late.
A defibrillator did the trick for Bill Fulginiti, who went into sudden cardiac arrest in 2002 at El Gancho, a private fitness club in Santa Fe.
Before the ambulance arrived, another club member, who had wilderness first-responder training, placed the pads on Fulginiti’s bare chest, then waited for the machine to give the go-ahead before shocking Fulginiti’s heart. The machines are so sophisticated that they talk the user through each step.
After the second shock, Fulginiti had a pulse again.
“Thank God, the club had that machine there,” Fulginiti said at the time. “Without that, I’d be in serious trouble, if not dead.”
Today, he knows how to use a defibrillator, and he convinced his employer, the New Mexico Municipal League, to buy one.
The machines are becoming increasingly popular and have been purchased by many rural communities, some of which have gotten special funding to help buy the equipment and train staff to use it.
But little has been done to offset the costs in urban areas, explained Marleen Apodaca, Emergency Medical Services Bureau chief for the state Health Department.
Neumann said the fire department is trying hard to get the program going again. Until then, he said, it’s lucky that city fire stations are in close proximity to the Chavez Center and Fort Marcy. “I can be there in two minutes from the time of the call,” he said.
Meanwhile, in Albuquerque, community centers are gearing up to buy defibrillators, and the fire department’s medical director will oversee the program, a manager for a cluster of city community centers said Friday.