British Columbia’s education minister says she agrees a piece of potentially life-saving equipment should be installed in schools across the province.
On Friday, Lisa Beare told Global News she has directed staff to review how to deploy automated external defibrillators (AEDs) throughout the public education system.
AEDs are portable devices that can be used to restart someone’s heart after a sudden cardiac arrest.
“AEDs are life-saving tools that should be located in schools. Student safety is my top priority,” Beare said.
“We have 90 per cent of districts who do CPR training and a number of those have AEDs. I’ve asked my team to look at where the gaps are so we can fill that gap.”
The comments come as a group of students from Vancouver’s Point Grey Secondary fights to have one of the devices installed across their school district.
Grade 11 student Tobias Zhang began the campaign after one of his friends died of a cardiac event in 2022.
But even after the students fundraised to acquire an AED, the Vancouver School Board told them it wouldn’t accept the device.
“We have these life-saving devices on hand and if something happens in the school … and it wasn’t there it would just make me feel defeated,” he told Global News on Friday.
They have since bought a second AED and supplier Iridia Medical — the Vancouver company that led B.C.’s first public access AED program, has donated five more, all of which are still sitting unused.
The company believes the devices are a manageable expense for the district.
“We would estimate about 400 thousand dollars over the span of 10 years,” said Katie Hyland with Iridia Medical.
“And that’s for 115 AEDs across the school district.”
AEDs are already installed in schools in Surrey, Richmond, Burnaby and North Vancouver, he added.
The students have met with VSB Chair Victoria Jung, but Zhang said the conversation was not productive.
“To be honest they said a lot of words, but there wasn’t a lot of points made,” he said.
“It just sounds like they are holding on to their older set of beliefs.”
Zhang says the district is concerned about installation and maintenance costs, didn’t want individual schools to get them before others, and believed there was a low risk of cardiac events among students.
In November, the school board told Global News it was working on an AED policy, but that in the interim devices were deployed to “select schools” where students with specific health needs had been identified.
Zhang and his peers are set to go before the school board this month, something Beare said she will be watching.
She said she and Premier David Eby also plan to meet with the group.
“I am very impressed by these students. They have done an amazing amount of advocacy work, and I want to congratulate them for it.”
But she said she’s directed her ministry to look into a provincewide plan.
Beare said the Ministry of Education is implementing a new CPR training program in September, and that staff will look at how to incorporate AEDs into that plan.
However, she could not commit to any timeline or budget to roll out a B.C. school AED program.
Whatever happens at both the VSB and provincial level, Zhang said he and his classmates won’t stop advocating for AEDs.
“I will not stop until this happens. Until they are in all the schools in Vancouver,” he said.
“Any life saved is a life saved. If we have an AED at any school at any time, even if it’s just one, that’s still a chance to save a life.”