THURSDAY JAN 3, 3008 (Foodconsumer.org) -- The staff in hospitals takes too long to respond to sudden cardiac arrest in nearly one third of the patients, probably leading to needless deaths of around 25,000 people a year, according to a new study published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

The study was based on the records registered by unnamed hospitals of 6,789 patients that suffered sudden cardiac arrest at 369 hospitals. The results could not help identify which hospitals performed better or worse.

Normally, hospitals are supposed to use defibrillators to electrically shock patients back to life within two minutes of cardiac arrest.   If the hospitals follow this guideline, about 39 percent of patients can survive compared to 22.2 percent for patients who did not receive prompt treatment.

According to the study, 370,000 to 750,000 people in the United States suffer sudden cardiac arrest each year. Based on the data provided in the study and estimated by the writer, about 300,000 die from the dangerous condition among which 25,000 die because the defibrillation was delayed.   This number of needless deaths is eight times higher than the number of people killed in the 9/11 attack.

The deaths due to the delayed defibrillation more often occur at nights or on weekends and in hospitals with less staff and equipment.   Blacks were more likely not to get help on times probably because black neighborhood hospitals are less well equipped and have few staff members.

Dr. Paul S. Chan, lead author of the study, of St. Luke's Mid America Heart Institute in Kansas City, Mo., and the University of Michigan suggested a few reasons for the delayed emergency act, which means that many hospitals are not well prepared with enough personnel and equipment to save patients with cardiac arrest.

According to the New York Times, automatic defibrillators are cheap, readily available and very easy for even laymen to use. This means that the hospitals may not do their best in a sense to prepare themselves to save patients with sudden cardiac arrest.

Dr. Leslie A. Saxon, chief of cardiology at the University of Southern California suggested in an editorial accompanying the study paper that hospitals are not the best place to have cardiac arrest and they should use more defibrillators if more sophisticated measures are not readily available.