Meerhoven Hartveilig (Meerhoven Heart Safe)

Residents’ Association Meerhoven took the initiative in 2021 to set up the Meerhoven Heartsafe Committee with the task of strengthening heart safety in Meerhoven. In collaboration with others, the committee has succeeded in making the Meerhoven district ‘heart safe’.

A neighbourhood may call itself heart-safe if one or more AEDs are accessible 24 hours a day in a public place in all so-called 6-minute zones. As a result, people who suffer a cardiac arrest can always be resuscitated within 6 minutes by volunteers (civilian aid workers) who are known to the HartslagNu organization.

HartslagNu is alerted immediately after a 112 report and coordinates the deployment of emergency services and AEDs. Ambulances quickly have a response time of 12 minutes after a 112 call, which is too long for a cardiac arrest. With a 6-minute zone, the victim’s chance of survival is considerably increased.

AED network
Thanks to the joint efforts of the Meerhoven Heartsafe Committee, Eindhoven Hartveilig Foundation, Philips and individuals, a network of 7 AEDs was formed in 2021 and expanded to 9 AEDs in 2022. This makes it a well-covering network. The AEDs are located at the following locations: Waterlinie, Grasbaan, Landleven (2x), Graslook, Grasland, Bosfazant, Zandvis, Zandbloem and Meerwater. HartslagNu is familiar with the exact locations of the AEDs and, when appropriate, passes them on to its alerted citizen aid workers.

Civilian aid workers and their training
Throughout the year, several organizations campaign to further increase the number of citizen aid workers. The Meerhoven Heartsafe Committee is also actively looking for local residents who would like to take a CPR course and then register with HartslagNu as civilian aid workers.

Fortunately, Meerhoven residents appear to be involved in heart safety in their neighbourhood. In 2022, over 50 residents attended a CPR starter course organized by the committee and 20 residents attended a refresher course. The number of civilian aid workers registered with HartslagNu in zip code 5658 grew from 148 by the end of 2021 to 162 by the end of 2022.

Despite this success, we also want to encourage other residents in Meerhoven to become civilian aid workers. The training takes one evening. On that evening you will learn how to resuscitate victims of cardiac arrest and how to operate the AED. An emergency responder must take a refresher course every year to remain certified. People who have a First Aid or FAFS diploma naturally also meet the required qualifications, provided they too recertify annually for CPR and AED use.

Interested in a CPR course?
New, free starter courses will be held on Tuesday, October 24 and Thursday, November 30, 2023. The course can also be taken by English speakers. If there is great interest in the courses, additional days will be organized. If you are interested but the courses appear to be already fully booked or you are unable to attend on October 24 and November 30, please send an e-mail to . To make it easy for you and for us, we ask that you register directly with our training provider FACTS at https://facts-opleidingen.nl/agenda/. When entering your personal information, you can enter an ‘x’ or other character in the (mandatory) fields ‘state/region’, ‘street number’ and ‘additional address’ and continue.

Shortly after attending the training, you will receive a certificate and an invoice from the training office. The cost is €34 and the invoice should be paid directly to the trainer. You can usually claim the invoice from your own health insurance company. If the insurer will not reimburse you and it is inconvenient for you to bear the costs yourself, then the costs can be claimed through the committee at Residents’ Association Meerhoven. The only condition is that you register as a volunteer with HartslagNu.

More information
For questions or other matters regarding heart safety, you can always contact the committee via e-mail at . Also, if you encounter problems when registering for a course (for example, because you can no longer find a free date that suits you) you can report this via the above e-mail address.