Local News in Brief : Santa Ana : Heart Gear Purchase for Paramedics OKd

The City Council on Monday night appropriated $75,700 for emergency purchase of seven electrocardiogram monitors after county health officials told the city to remove other, defective monitors from city ambulances.

With little discussion, the council voted unanimously to purchase Life Pak 5 monitor-defibrillators, the same as those used by all other paramedics units in the county. The Fire Department has had the new units on its paramedic trucks since April 22, but until Monday the council hadn’t approved the purchase.

The city’s old Liteguard 9 monitors, manufactured by Survival Technology Inc. of Bethesda, Md., failed 82 times during calls by city paramedics over the past 11 months, according to officials at Western Medical Center in Santa Ana, the paramedics’ base station.

Councilman John Acosta asked why the staff report seeking the funds made no mention of the extensive trouble that paramedics had had with the monitors. The report by Fire Chief Allen R. Carter cited “lack of standardization� as the reason for the switch.

“The county instructed us to change that equipment and we did so,� answered City Manager David N. Ream. “We certainly wanted to preserve our right to be a service provider under the county’s emergency medical services system.�

The monitors are used to read and transmit a patient’s heart rhythm to emergency room staffs and to deliver an electric shock to regulate a patient’s heart beat.

On April 14, two Liteguard 9 monitors failed on one call and paramedics were unable to determine cardiac rhythm or to shock the heart of a 54-year-old man in full cardiac arrest. A few days later, medical center staff and county officials told Santa Ana that problems with the monitors were jeopardizing patient care and the monitors had to go.