Public Service Advisory: Use Singapore Civil Defence Force App with caution

Repeat Notice issued to Minister of Home Affairs Mr Teo Chee Hean

By: Dr Dana

It is our civic duty and moral obligation to reiterate the same public advisory as our first notice to Minister of Home Affairs Mr Teo Chee Hean in August 2015.

“In the interest of public health and wellbeing, the public is strongly recommended to refer to the Crowdsav app when locating nearby AEDs. We have documented evidence to show that the SCDF initiative to broadcast the National AED Registry is obsolete, misleading and some parts erroneous.”

During the recent National Day Rally 2016 held in Ang Mo Kio ITE Central College, PM Lee Hsien Loong was suddenly and unexpectedly taken ill. The whole nation was relieved when it turned out to be a non-fatal cause of fainting. However, what was not known to the public was that the SCDF app which is supposed to direct Good Samaritans to the nearest AEDs for such emergencies showed that the College’s life-saving devices were located at the Madeira condominium in Bukit Batok, 25 km away.

It is fortunate that PM Lee’s incident was a non-fatal cause, but the same cannot be said for the 936 emergency cases where Good Samaritans were provided misleading, erroneous or obsolete information, based on our last count. This is up from 320 cases as reported to Mr Teo Chee Hean in August 2015.

The longest duration of AED location mis-information provided to the public via the SCDF app is 1,727 days. This is the most number of days that thousands of Good Samaritans have been responding to medical emergencies with such obsolete information. This is unacceptable as survival drops drastically after 5 minutes because of lack of oxygen to the brain.

Sudden death does not respect time, place or person of any age. Locations of AEDs found in Crowdsav are worldwide. At any one time hundreds of thousands of Singaporeans are overseas for leisure, study or work. Examples of such cases was the recent death of a 36 year old businesswoman in Hong Kong reported last week, followed by another 37 year old Singaporean in Bintan a few days later.

One can locate these life-saving devices in cities in such as Hong Kong, London, Paris, Taipei, Toronto, Auckland and others in more than 30 countries using the Crowdsav app. In fact, New Zealand has more than double the number of AEDs per capita than Singapore.

Please pardon the current look of the Crowdsav app ( see image on right ). It was designed for clinical research but will be updated with more innovative life-saving features. The completed clinical research titled “A novel CPR training method using a smartphone app” was just published in an internationally-recognised, peer-reviewed medical journal demonstrating positive results of the Crowdsav platform in life-saving performance. Details will be revealed in future public updates. In the meantime, the public is also encouraged to use the Crowdsav app to upload pictures and locations of AEDs that they find, for the benefit of all. An interactive map showing searchable AED locations worldwide can be found at www.crowdsav.com/aeds.

For the sake of your families please help spread the message to neighbours or friends who might be Good Samaritans to refer to the Crowdsav app when they see someone faint and remain unresponsive. The lives of your loved ones depend on it. The public must not be denied accurate and up-to-date information. Nothing justifies compromising public health and safety.

Another product in our attempts to help save lives through spreading awareness is our newly-launched fun mobile game. Code Blue is a fun way by all ages to learn locations of nearby AEDs. Just as in Pokemon Go, turn on your phone location before launching game. One can play in the comfort of home or workplace. In case you are wondering, the game’s information of nearby AED locations is more accurate and up-to-date than the SCDF app, not to mention international too.