Bill would mandate defibrillators for city facilities, new buildings

A new bill before the Honolulu City Council would require all city-owned buildings and all new Oahu buildings to carry automated external defibrillators, also known as AEDs.

Bill 69, introduced by Councilman Brandon Elefante, gets its first airing at the Council’s December meeting, and its last gathering of the year, on Thursday.

Elefante, who heads the Council Public Health, Safety and Welfare Committee, said he’s hopeful the proposal will be able to save lives.

The proposal was suggested by members of the Emergency Services Department and was an idea he was already thinking about, Elefante said.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that less than 8 percent of people who experience sudden cardiac arrest, the abrupt loss of heart function, outside of a hospital survive. Those odds increase by two to three times, however, when a bystander is able to quickly apply an AED before emergency personnel arrive, the CDC says on its website.

Elefante’s bill inserts into the city’s Building Code a provision requiring that, beginning with those who receive occupancy permits in 2018, all city buildings and all newly constructed buildings (city-owned or not) install AEDs, maintain them and post appropriate signs indicating where the AEDs are located. The rule would not apply to build-ings with fewer than 20 people.

The bill calls for at least one AED to be placed on each floor that would be accessible to residents, employees and the public.

Twenty states, including Hawaii, mandate that all public schools carry and maintain publicly available AEDs, according to research done by the Scripps Howard News Service and posted on the website of the nonprofit Sudden Cardiac Arrest Foundation. In Hawaii, that requirement also extends to private secondary schools as well as colleges and universities.

The same survey found 14 states require that AEDs be located in health clubs. A smattering of states require pools to carry AEDs.

A key focus of state legislation has been on enacting “good Samaritan immunity laws” that shield from liability those who use AEDs in an effort to save people in cardiac arrest. Today, all 50 states have such legislation.

“We’ll see where the conversation goes as we continue to discuss this issue,” Elefante said, noting that at the very least it will spread knowledge about AEDs.

If approved on first reading Wednesday, the measure would go to the Zoning and Planning Committee in January.