The Auburn City Council held its second meeting for the month of January on Tuesday night. A wide variety of topics were discussed, but the approval of the purchase of medical equipment was among the most important orders of business.
The council approved the purchase of three LUCAS Compression Devices from Stryker Medical, totaling $52,845.47 in value.
The LUCAS Compression Devices provide a safer alternative to providing chest compressions by hand. The devices have received positive reviews from medical professionals all over the world.
"We have learned that there is no 'single therapy' or 'magic pill' that will increase survival rates," said Kevin Traynor, a clinical supervisor in Texas. "It is the real ability to focus on the basics and provide quality post-resuscitative care, in addition to implementing new innovations like the LUCAS Chest Compression System."
Another medical professional talked about some of the other benefits of the devices.
"To be able to put a LUCAS 2 on a patient and not worry about rotating my staff through the job of CPR buys me enormous cognitive space to think about all the other things I need to think about during a resuscitation in order to provide the optimum and most appropriate treatment of the patient," said Dr. Trudi Davis who works in the Emergency Department of Liverpool Hospital in Australia.
The American Society of Anesthesiologists released a report assessing the risks versus the benefits of the devices. The report also had good things to say.
A common problem during manual CPR is that the chest does not always recoil because of an increase in chest wall compliance. Although other CPR devices provide consistent compression depth and rate, the LUCAS device, because of its integrated suction cup, is the only automated device that assists the decompression phase by drawing up on the chest and returning it to neutral."
These devices could be an asset unlike anything the Auburn Fire Department has had previously.
The next meeting of the Auburn City Council will take place on Tuesday, Feb. 6, at 6 p.m. All city council meetings are held in the city council chamber located at 141 N. Ross Street.
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Daniel Locke, junior in journalism, is the community editor for The Auburn Plainsman.
Twitter: @danieljlocke
