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Learning skills on how to save a life is could be part of your child’s curriculum come September.
Students will have the opportunity in the upcoming school year to learn cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and how to use lifesaving tools like an automated external defibrillator (AED).
The Ministry of Education and the Heart and Stroke Foundation teamed up to launch the program, which will give school divisions tools and teaching materials to introduce the CardiacCrash plan – free of charge for teachers.
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Saskatchewan’s Education Minister, Everett Hindley, said the training will prepare students when “every second matters” in an emergency.
“Providing the opportunity to offer CPR education in our schools is an important step to protect lives and strengthen safety in our communities,” he said in a news release.
The goal of the program is to “reduce hesitation to act during cardiac emergencies,” resulting in saved lives.
Carolyn Cyr, the foundation’s provincial director of health policy and systems, said the program aims to help create more people in a “new generation of lifesavers.”
Good Spirit School Division will be integrating the program into it’s curriculum.
“The CardiacCrash program plays a vital role in addressing Saskatchewan’s high rate of cardiac arrest fatalities, particularly in out of hospital settings where survival rates remain low,” said the school division’s CEO, Quintin Robertson, in a news release.
The provincial government has taken additional steps to inspire more students explore different health care careers this year, when the province and the Saskatchewan Distance Learning Centre collaborated to build Health Careers 20L.
Saskatchewan Distance Learning Centre CEO Darren Gasper said 11 students have signed up for the health care course. (Gillian Massie/980 CJME)
Students who sign up for the course will learn about a variety of health care careers like nursing, patient care, diagnostics, pharmacy, dentistry, mental wellness, addictions treatment and emergency care.
Hindley said the course will be available for students in Grade 10 to 12.
“We all know that our health-care system continues to grow, continues to evolve, and there’s some really unique opportunities here,” he said in March. “I hope that it does bode well in terms of providing for opportunities for students.”
