Hansard

I remind members of my entry in the register of members’ interests, which shows that I am still a serving councillor for Aberdeen City Council.

I thank Jenni Minto for bringing the debate to the Parliament. I enjoyed her powerful speech.

Like other members, I commend the work of community organisations in fundraising to purchase defibrillators. Likewise, I commend the work of the British Heart Foundation and others. That work has increased the number of defibrillators throughout Scotland. However, we must do all that we can to provide more support to ensure that that network of life-saving equipment is properly registered, checked and maintained. After all, it really is a matter of life or death, and that is the reason why I feel compelled to take part in the debate.

Earlier this year, a constituent of mine was in desperate need of a defibrillator. His son rushed to the defibrillator that was in their local village but, for whatever reason, it was not on the 999 system or the Circuit. He tried desperately to get it open but, without the code to unlock it, there was nothing that he could do. He was tantalisingly close and I cannot think of a crueller situation than that. Tragically, my constituent passed away. He paid the ultimate price—losing his life—and his family are left with the tortuous, traumatic thoughts of, “What if?” for the rest of their lives.

It is unacceptable that we find out that a defibrillator is not properly connected or maintained only at the point when someone calls 999 with a desperate medical need for it. Currently, local authorities regularly check life rings to ensure that they are fit for purpose. I would like the Scottish Government to provide funding to local authorities or community groups to allow them to carry out similar checks on a regular basis. Like a life ring, a defibrillator is—we hope—never needed but, in an emergency situation, we need to know that the kit is available and that it works. At that point, it is too late if it has been vandalised or broken or it suffers from another kind of fault.

Like Jackie Dunbar, I welcome the fact that Aberdeen City Council is investigating the possibility of installing defibrillators in all schools and sheltered housing locations. As she said, it is a rare moment when all parties in Aberdeen agree, but we certainly did at that time.

As has been mentioned already, too many people have undiagnosed heart conditions that cause out-of-hospital heart attacks. As Jenni Minto said, currently, only one in 10 people who suffer out-of-hospital cardiac arrest survives. We must do more to prevent that, and we can.

The work that small community groups have done to help to fund defibrillators throughout our country deserves tremendous praise, but there is a huge problem that needs the attention and resource of Government to bring in recommendations from charities such as Heart Valve Voice and other heart disease specialists. At present, too many lives are lost prematurely to heart disease in Scotland. I hope that there are steps that the Government and everyone else can take to help to tackle that.