New Great Southern Aboriginal Medical Service leads country’s first Indigenous-focused first aid sessions

Aboriginal communities in the Great Southern are the first in the country to benefit from a national initiative delivering vital emergency training, thanks to a newly established Indigenous health service. More than 50 Aboriginal people attended the first sessions in Albany last week, with many more scheduled to attend sessions in Mt Barker, Tambellup, Katanning, Gnowangerup and Kojonup. A joint effort between the newly formed Great Southern Aboriginal Medical Service, Community First Responders Australia and the Heart Foundation, the initiative teaches residents basic first aid, including how to use a defibrillator, to improve survival rates from sudden cardiac arrest. “Usually, if you collapse and you have a heart attack or a cardiac arrest, it’s your family and friends who are there and witness it and are there to help you,” Heart Foundation chief medical adviser Sandra Eades said. “They’re the people that need training, because the first four minutes is critical. “We know that 32,000 Australians every year have a heart attack or have a cardiac arrest, and that in the first five minutes, four minutes, it’s possible to save people if you intervene early, give CPR, use a defibrillator if it’s around. “Most people have seen defibrillators on the wall, but they don’t know how to use them, or . . . they’re a bit scared, so it’s bringing the training to ordinary people.” Ms Eades, who now lives over east but is originally from the Great Southern, said she advocated for the region to be the first in the country to test out the training. “I knew from personal experience and talking to people in this region that people in rural communities miss out, they often get things later or in the distant future, which is a problem,” she said. “Now we can see that the model’s worked. People came along. People wanted it. So these first sessions taught us that other people in other regions would benefit as well.” GSAMS chairman Lindsay Dean said the sessions were the result of the service’s first funding allocation, and aimed to reduce the high number of cardiac-related deaths in Indigenous people. “The biggest killer in our region is heart attack,” he said. “We still die 15 years younger than non-Indigenous people, and all of the social health statistics are heavily favoured in the Aboriginal community so we took that into account too. “People have loved the training and we’ve probably done 53 people — so that’s 53 people who’ve been trained and have a skill that didn’t have that before, and hopefully 53 people who can save a life.” Mr Dean started up the GSAMS this year to fill the health service gap for Aboriginal people in the Great Southern. “We have about 3000 Aboriginal people living here, and we’re the only region that doesn’t have a community controlled health service, so we’ve taken the initiative on to start one up and to provide better health services,” he said. ‘’We know from other areas that Aboriginal medical services best serve the Aboriginal community, and we see the results. “We just think that it’s well and truly overdue here. You know, it’s only been 200 years, but we’re here now.”