Students to be empowered to save lives

HEARST, ON, 17/09/07

Today, the Advanced Coronary Treatment (ACT) Foundation, in partnership with TransCanada Corporation, and the Government of Ontario and other key provincial partners (Hydro One, Shoppers Drug Mart and The Ontario Trillium Foundation), is launching the ACT High School CPR Program in Hearst, Ontario. The launch will take place at 10:00 a.m. at École secondaire catholique Hearst, 30 10e rue. Schools from the Conseil scolaire catholique des Grandes Rivières, Conseil scolaire de district du Nord-Est de l’Ontario and District School Board Ontario North East are embracing this award-winning program.

Over six hundred and fifty (650) students from 14 schools will now be empowered to save lives every year. Thirty-nine physical education teachers have been trained as CPR instructors and will now train their students using the 205 mannequins donated to their schools. The students in these boards will then take their life-saving skills to their communities, which include: Hearst, Kapuskasing, Mattice, Smooth Rock Falls and Timmins.

The ACT Foundation is a national charitable organization dedicated to establishing CPR as a mandatory program in every Canadian high school. The ACT High School CPR Program is built on ACT’s award-winning community-based model of partnerships and support. Through this model, ACT raises funds for CPR mannequins for schools and guides schools in program set up. The lead community partner in Hearst is TransCanada Corporation. The company is playing a key role in helping to bring the CPR Program to this community. The local print partner Sun Media Inc. Northern Ontario has donated a two year supply of manuals for over 650 students.

“The health and safety of the public and our employees is one of TransCanada’s top priorities,” says Brian McConaghy, vice-president, TransCanada Community, Safety and Environment. “Because TransCanada does business in the local area, we seized the opportunity to help these young students gain the ability to make a serious contribution to the health and safety of others in their community.”

Research indicates citizen CPR response can improve survival rate for victims by almost fourfold. With eight in 10 out-of-hospital cardiac arrests occurring at home, empowering youth with CPR training as part of their high school education will help increase citizen CPR response rates over the long term.

“CPR saves lives and through our partnership with the ACT Foundation and our North-Eastern Ontario School Boards we hope to deliver CPR training to over 650 students annually within the Cochrane District,” says Steve Trinier, Emergency Medical Services Director for the Cochrane District Social Services Administration Board. “Without question, at some point in the future, one of these students will intervene in an emergency situation and have a profound impact on not only the victims life, but on their own life as well.”

The ACT Foundation’s goal in Ontario is to expand the CPR Program to every high school throughout the province. To help make this possible, ACT has secured a provincial commitment of $650,000 from the Government of Ontario through its public / private funding partnership. Through this partnership, the Foundation seeks matching funds for program resources at the community level.

The ACT Foundation also receives provincial-level funding for the program from Hydro One, Shoppers Drug Mart, and The Ontario Trillium Foundation, and its national partners are AstraZeneca, Bristol-Myers Squibb Canada, Pfizer Canada and sanofi-aventis.

“We are thrilled with the support of ACT’s partners. Without them, this program would not be possible,” says ACT Foundation Executive Director Sandra Clarke.

To date, the ACT High School CPR Program is in over 400 Ontario high schools and over 600,000 Ontario students have been trained. Nationally, over 1 million students from more than 1,000 schools have been empowered to save lives through the CPR Program.

About the ACT Foundation
The ACT Foundation is a national, award-winning charitable organization dedicated to promoting health and empowering Canadians to save lives. ACT is driving a national campaign to establish CPR as a mandatory program in every Canadian high school. ACT raises funds for CPR mannequins for schools and guides schools in program set up. Over 1 million students from more than 1,000 schools have been empowered to save lives through the CPR Program to date. The Foundation and its core partners are winners of Imagine Canada’s “New Spirit of Community Partnership” Award. Core partners are companies in the research-based pharmaceutical industry: AstraZeneca, Bristol-Myers Squibb Canada, Pfizer Canada and sanofi-aventis. They provide ACT’s sustaining funding and are committed to the Foundation’s national goal of promoting health and empowering Canadians to save lives. For more information visit: www.actfoundation.ca.