Lek Donates Defibrillator to Ljubljana Festival

At the press conference today, the Ljubljana Festival once again presented the program for this year’s festival, which includes a concert by the Moscow Chamber orchestra, which is sponsored by Lek, a Sandoz company.

The presentation of the program was followed by the presentation of the defibrillator, which Member of the Lek Board of Management Darija Brečevič presented to Manager and Artistic Director of the Ljubljana Festival Darko Brlek. Mrs. Brečevič said: “Caring for health and a better quality of life is one of the cornerstones of Lek’s mission. Through the various activities and projects that we support, we try to encourage preventive behavior and increase awareness of the importance of a healthy lifestyle. However, preventive actions are often too late, therefore at those times it is important to be prepared and most importantly to be capable of providing assistance. Therefore this year we are giving a defibrillator to the Ljubljana Festival, which every year holds events that are attended by large numbers of people. So it is right to do everything we can to protect people’s safety and provide first aid in case of accidents. The defibrillator we are donating is easy to use. In spite of this, the associates of the Ljubljana Festival will be taking training courses to learn how to use it and will thus be able to assist people in need with greater self-confidence. Of course we hope that they will have to use it as little as possible.”

The operation of the defibrillator was also presented at the press conference. It is an invaluable piece of equipment which can save the life of anyone who suffers a sudden stoppage of respiratory or heart functions. People who experience such attacks suddenly collapse and lie prostrate. In Slovenia there are 5.5 such cases per day on average. 95% of these people die before arriving at the hospital. Action must be taken immediately! An automatic defibrillator is a device which prevents heart fibrillation by passing a strong electrical shock between the electrodes which are attached to the patient’s chest, thus stimulating the heart to begin beating normally again. Darija Brečevič and Darko Brlek spoke about the importance and use of the defibrillator.

Lek recognized the need for publically accessible defibrillators as early as 2005, when they contributed funds for the purchase of two defibrillators: one is located in the pedestrian underpass at Maximarket, and the other travels around Slovenia. Last year they also donated a defibrillator to Radio Slovenija, which is publically accessible and intended for public use.