On 17 June, Independent Member for Kiama, Gareth Ward’s office was donated a defibrillator and he used the occasion to again emphasise the bill he has brought to parliament regarding defibrillators.

Ward, who was given the defibrillator by the South Coast Superheroes, hopes that, as an outcome of his bill, the government will pass a law making it mandatory for all public buildings to have a defibrillator and he believes that this will save lives.

“I had a constituent come and see me who told me about an incident he had had where a public defibrillator had saved his life,” says Ward. “So given the fact that this is a matter of life and death literally, I thought it was a topic that warranted my attention.”

“And so, I did some research and came across a bill that had been passed by the South Australian parliament introduced there by an independent member … I then sought based on his bill, with some drafting of my own, to bring this bill into parliament. Because I firmly believe that this bill could save lives,” says Ward.

The government is scheduled to reply to the legislation in August and Ward is adamant that he doesn’t care if the government wants to handle the issue differently if the outcome is the same.

“I know that they may throw up all sorts of scenarios in reply … But as I said in the debate, this doesn’t need to have my name on it, I just want to see it come into law. If the government wants to propose their own legislation, I’m happy for them to do that, I just want to get the outcome,” says Ward.

Ward says that the government may use economic problems as an opposition to the bill, but he maintains that the statistics prove that it is worth every cent.

“In NSW, on average, each year around 3800 people die from an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest. And it's anticipated that more than 70% of those people could have had their lives saved if they were near a defibrillator. Now that figure is several times the road toll. “We put all this money into roads, rightfully,” says Ward.

“But a device so simple and so affordable, I mean defibrillators, particularly the one-use defibrillators, cost a couple of hundred bucks. And so just like a fire hydrant in a public building, why shouldn’t we have a defibrillator?” Says Ward.

Considering the NSW government took Kiama out of the Sports Defibrillator Grant Program, Ward is pretty confident that they are concerned about the cost.

“They actually took Kiama out of the Sports Defibrillator Grant Program … They applied a socioeconomic criterion to the Sports Defibrillator Grants Program and the suburbs that the government deemed were too wealthy were no longer eligible,” says Ward.

Ward also says that the bill he lodged aims to ensure that each defibrillator is monitored and registered, which is something that the Service NSW and GoodSAM apps have struggled with.

“The problem with the Service NSW data, and this is something that my bill seeks to address, is to make sure that we have mandatory registration of defibs. Also, things like battery life so that they can be checked. Or whether or not they’re behind a roller door because that’s the last thing you want is to look up your app when someone is going into cardiac arrest, go to the nearest one, and find that you have to bash down a roller door,” says Ward.