Peggy Revell
The Rainy River District Social Services Administration Board received the first allotment of defibrillator units it will be distributing across the district.
The announcement was made at last Thursday night’s board meeting by Gary Gamsby, who chairs the land ambulance committee.
“These [25 units] are intended to go into municipal posts like arenas, community centres, and places like that,” Gamsby told the rest of the board, although there is still discussion as to where each unit will go in communities.
Another 16 defibrillators also have been approved to go into schools across the district, which will be arriving soon, he added.
The defibrillators come in cabinets that are installed in public spaces. While the cabinets aren’t locked, they come with an alarm that sounds if they are opened.
“[The defibrillator has] both visual and audio prompts, so it just starts the sequence and you just visually go through the sequence,” Health Services manager Dan McCormick explained to the board.
“With first aid and CPR, defibrillation is a component now across the province,” he added. “So everybody that’s getting CPR and first aid courses now are also getting [trained on] defibrillators.”
For each defibrillator unit, up to six people will be trained, McCormick noted.
If used, the defibrillators have to be sent away and the information downloaded. Then they are refurbished and sent back.
“So we have talked about looking at the near future, in our 2009 budget, to budget for a few replacement ones,” said Gamsby. “So say if one gets used in Morson, then we can ship another one up there and it’s replaced right away while we get the other one refurbished.”
“Hopefully, they’ll be out there very quickly now that they’re on site,” said McCormick.
In other news, the local DSSAB passed a motion last Thursday night to maintain the 2009 market rents at 2008 rates. Reviewing the market rents for DSSAB housing projects is required annually, noted Finance manager Leanne Eluik, but only affects market rent tenants.
“As the social housing committee, I think we decided to leave it the same because of the economic conditions in our area, the fact that we have such high vacancy rates already,” explained Rainy River Mayor Debbie Ewald, who chairs DSSAB’s social housing committee.
“We thought that by increasing rents again, it would perhaps drive out some of the market renters and then we’d be in worse shape,” she reasoned.
The housing committee did discuss that the rate has not been increased for a few years, and that they don’t want to all of a sudden put through a large increase, noted Ewald.
But based on the current vacancy rates and the economy, the committee still decided to recommend that rates remain the same this year.
