A councillor with the Carleton University Students’ Association (CUSA) is pushing for CUSA to get more first aid kits and training after an incident at the Womyn’s Centre on Feb. 17.
Arts and social science councillor Ruth Lau-MacDonald said she saw a woman choking and called the Carleton University Emergency Student Response Team (CUSERT). She said CUSERT arrived, treated the individual and left. Then, 10 minutes later, the woman started showing signs of shock.
“Shock is a physical reaction after a traumatic experience. It shakes people cold,” Lau-MacDonald said. She saw the woman “was getting progressively worse,” and that she was given “something to warm herself up.”
Lau-MacDonald said she went to the CUSA office and Rooster’s Café to find a shock blanket to treat the woman, but was unable to find one.
She said she got a shock blanket from the Graduate Students’ Association (GSA) office.
“The shock blankets make a huge difference because you lose so much of your body heat, and being able to stay warm really alleviates a lot of that,” she said.
According to Lau-MacDonald, the incident prompted her to talk to CUSA president Fahd Alhattab about having first aid kits.
“I’m shocked and appalled that our student association doesn’t have our physical safety covered,” Lau-MacDonald said.
“I think that’s one of those things that you take for granted until you’re faced with a situation where you’re [aware of] how unprepared you are,” she said.
Alhattab said at the time there was one first aid kit available for the CUSA service centres on the third floor of the University Centre, and one in the main CUSA offices on the fourth floor.
Service centre coordinators also have the opportunity to go through first aid training over the summer, but Alhattab said the training isn’t mandatory.
“We’ve made it part of our [service centre co-ordinator’s] monthly procedures to review their first aid kits and make sure they’re getting it done properly,” he said of what CUSA has done in response to the incident.
“For the most part I think it was a unique situation and unfortunate, and I’m glad it was brought up because we’re able to react to it before anything worse could actually happen,” Alhattab said.
Lau-MacDonald said she sent a report to the Ministry of Labour about CUSA not having an operational health and safety committee or policy. Alhattab said the creation of a joint CUSA health and safety committee has been fast-tracked because of what happened on Feb. 17.
MacDonald said her goal is for CUSA to have first aid kits and training to treat people as first responders.
“Those 10 minutes [before CUSERT shows up] are crucial,” she said. “Those 10 minutes can save somebody’s life.”
“The main issue is the timing it takes CUSERT to arrive,” said Debbie Owusu-Akeeyah, the president of the GSA, which has first aid kits and training for full-time staff.
“It should be almost mandatory that almost every service centre, every office has a standard first aid kit so that they can help people,” said Mercy Danquah, CUSERT team manager. She said the residences and most offices already have first aid kits.
“I personally think that as many people as possible being first aid trained would never be a detriment to Carleton’s community,” Danquah said. “The more people who can assess the situation and help their fellow members out, the better.”
“Any of the [CUSA] staff that I’ve spoken to are really shocked,” Lau-MacDonald said of the feedback.
“The more they talk about it, I think they realize how unsafe things have been and are,” she said. “And I think everyone’s really enthusiastic about taking steps to make sure that the CUSA spaces are safer moving forward.”
– Infographic by Mariam Abdel-Akher
