When COVID-19 first took hold much of the country moved to working from home to protect themselves from the virus. But the trend has had an unintended consequence - cardiac arrest survival rates are decreasing.
The latest Out-of-Hospital Cardiac Arrest (OHCA) reports from NZ's ambulance services show cardiac arrest survival rates are down for the second consecutive year since the COVID-19 pandemic.
The latest report covers between July 1, 2020 and June 30, 2021. It shows 2000 people were treated for a cardiac arrest in the community, approximately five per day, with only 25 percent of those surviving to hospital arrival. Meanwhile, only 11 percent survived past 30 days post-hospital discharge.
Speaking with AM on Tuesday Wellington Free Ambulance Clinical Director Dr Andy Swain said surprisingly, working from home is partly to blame.
Dr Swain said ambulance response times have been fairly steady but because people are more isolated, cardiac arrests are going unnoticed more and there are fewer people around who can administer CPR.
"We've seen a move to people being at home. Working from home, sometimes quarantining at home, sometimes in lockdown at home and this has meant the urban centres - the CBDs have been quite deserted at times," he said.
"What normally happens is that if somebody collapses with a cardiac arrest in an urban zone, there will be people around, it will be witnessed straight away, somebody will get on the phone and call 111. Bystanders will come around and start CPR and somebody who is informed where it is will go to a local shop or residential recreational facility or an office to get a public access defibrillator to bring to the patient. That can all happen before ambulance or fire arrives.
"But what we've seen with the move to patients being at home is it can't work like that. First of all, somebody can collapse at home without others in the household really appreciating it, so there can be a delay there.
"There's also a limited number of people to do CPR and also if it's one person, they have to speak on the phone at the same time that they are doing CPR. And there won't be bystanders nearby automatically who are trained in CPR."
Watch the full interview above.
