First Aid Training

If there is an injury or medical emergency in your workplace, will someone be able to respond promptly?

The more employees know first aid, the more likely the response to an incident will be fast enough to save a life, reduce the severity of an injury and promote speedy recovery.

All Employees Need Life Saving Skills

Workplace regulations require employers to have some employees certified in first aid. However, it makes good business sense to exceed the legislative requirements by giving all employees basic first aid training.The obvious advantage is that it ensures people can respond properly if an incident occurs. If only one person in the office or the shift can apply CPR or first aid, what happens in an emergency when that worker is not available?

Another benefit is that employees become more safety conscious. Research shows that workplaces where all employees know first aid have a lower incidence of injuries. This may be because they become more aware of injury-causing situations.

Moreover, critical life saving skills and awareness transfer off the job. From the employer's perspective, it should not matter where the emergency occurs. When a family member suffers a fall or heart attack at home, a worker's attendance and performance can be affected.

Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation

Every employee can benefit from at least introductory CPR training. It puts them in a position to help in life threatening situations such as choking or heart attack, which require swift, effective response.

New international CPR guidelines were released in 2000. Two distinct groups have been identified: lay rescuers (basically, the general public); and targeted responders (people with a duty to respond, including first aiders in the workplace).

Basic Training

Only certain employees are classified as targeted responders. However, an organization benefits when a large part of its workforce is trained in first aid and CPR. With training, more employees gain the skills to manage an emergency effectively, without panic or confusion.

In Canada, St. John Ambulance and the Canadian Red Cross offer first aid and CPR training, and the Heart and Stroke Foundation offers CPR. Both St. John and the Red Cross offer training courses which focus on time-sensitive, life threatening situations that could occur in the workplace or at home and how to prevent injuries.

St. John Ambulance Emergency Level First Aid course provides the basic skills needed to reduce shock, treat injuries and in many cases, save lives; the St. John CPR training (Level A) covers one-rescuer CPR, artificial respiration and choking manoeuvres for adults.

The Canadian Red Cross Emergency First Aid course introduces choking skills, rescue breathing and CPR for adults, infants and children, how to treat severe bleeding and shock, how to perform a secondary assessment, and information about automated external defibrillation (AED).

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