Z publicly announced this morning that all of its 211 retail sites would be equipped with a defibrillator.
It would mean 10 more in Otago, including four in Dunedin, a spokeswoman said.
‘‘Our communities are important to us, our people live and work there, our customers live and work there and we wanted to do something that would make a real difference,’’ Z community manager Christine Langdon said.
‘‘Now people will know exactly where to go in an emergency to get access to a defibrillator, no matter what time of the day or night it is.’’
Z, in partnership with St John, was introducing the defibrillators this week and they would be available 24/7 at about 70% of the sites and could be taken off-site if needed.
St John medical director Dr Tony Smith said the chance of survival fell by 10-15% for every minute a patient was without CPR or defibrillation.‘‘New Zealand’s low rate of public access to defibrillators remains an issue so [automated external defibrillators] at Z stations in New Zealand communities is an excellent step forward,’’ he said.
