Is sexism preventing women from receiving life saving CPR?

This Friday, 16^th October 2020, is Restart a Heart Day – a global campaign designed to raise awareness and shatter myths around cardiac arrest plus engage the public in CPR and AED training so that everyone can save the life of a bystander, co-worker or family member.

Research has shown that support from the public in the first 3-4minutes is critical and significantly improves the chances of not only surviving the event but making a return to a healthy life.

In addition to shocking survival rates with over 30,000 Australian suffering from cardiac arrest each year and only 1 in 10 surviving, separate US and European studies show that only 39% of women are likely to receive CPR from a bystander – and we need to change both of these statistics.

Researchers suspect bystanders’ are reluctant to touch the chest of woman they don’t know and there is a genuine lack of awareness that women can also suffer from cardiac arrest. The thought of pushing hard and fast on the center of a woman’s chest can be confronting and raises concerns of physical hand placement plus required force.

This is why realism in training and simulation is critical to inform, educate and prepare civilians and bystanders to act and respond in the event of an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest, or any emergency situation.

At TraumaSim Group, we are working hard to change the above and have recently introduced The Manniskin – currently a silicone female skin available in varying pigments with realistic hair, breasts, eyelashes and advanced face detail. This product range enables First Aid trainers to quickly apply a realistic skin over current Little Anne CPR/QCPR manikins and immediately add realism to their training.

Our team is developing this product line to offer both genders in a range of body types, differing ages and with varying faces and ethnic features to better represent the society currently calling Australia home. Acknowledging both diversity and multiculturalism, this innovation is a massive leap forward in the endless quest to improve training simulation and to removing key barriers to saving lives.

TraumaSim Group is a local, Australian owned company that designs and manufactures medically accurate training aids for the global market and are passionate about realism in training.

Check out our proposed solution in our online store: The Manniskin