A gift from the Fondation Médicale The Parish of Sainte-Agathe-des-Monts receives a defibrillator

Caption In the photo, from left to right, Father Marc Richer, Daniel Desjardins, Executive Director of the Fondation médicale des Laurentides et des Pays-d’en-Haut, Jacques Legault, son of the deceased, and Father Steven St-Amour.

It’s the Parish of Sainte-Agathe-des-Monts’s turn to benefit from the generosity of the Fondation Médicale des Laurentides et des Pays-d’en-Haut.

 

The parish has received a defibrillator to be installed in the church. This electronic device serves to restart a patient’s heart. Invented by a doctor in 1947, it is designed to save patients having a heart attack.

 

Unfortunate incident

Recently an elderly man suffered a heart attack while attending a Saturday afternoon mass.  “If the church had a defibrillator available, the chances of saving the man would have been greater. Statistics show that, in 75% of cases, people can be saved with a defibrillator while only 0.5% to 15% will survive when one is not used,” notes the Fondation Médicale’s executive director, Daniel Desjardins.

 

“If providing this device succeeds in saving lives, the death of my father will not have been in vain,” maintains Jacques Legault, son of the deceased. The two parish priests in Saint-Agathe, Marc Richer and

Steven St-Amour, are pleased with this new acquisition. “We’ve just installed a breath of life in our church,” stated Father Richer. “It gives us hope for saving lives, something very important for us,” adds Father St-Amour in his turn.

 

This new gift brings the number of devices distributed across the territory to more than a dozen. Some health co-ops and many clinics have benefitted from these gifts in the past.