OCTOBER 5, 2017
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Recommended recipients: Southern Poverty Law Center, National Teacher’s Associations, National Association of independent Schools, Americans with Disabilities, Veteran’s Association, Labor and Construction Association and Unions, Day-Care Associations, Factory Worker Associations, and Unions, American Camping Association, Boys Scouts and Girl Scout of America, local news organizations, etc.
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With no notice to instructors, students, or vendors of American Heart Association First Aid and CPR training courses across the nation, the AHA suddenly and dramatically increased the cost of course certification cards as much as 600%. An American Heart Association official was not available for comment today and wait times for their national 800# telephone hotline have been reported to be over an hour. One operator reported calls are flooding in from distressed instructors around the nation.
Traditionally students have incurred a fee (usually built into the class tuition) of approximately $4 to receive an earned First Aid or CPR certification card. However, on March 3, 2018, with no advanced warning and literally overnight, the AHA raised the price of certification cards to as much as $23.00 per student, forcing instructors to immediately halt local classes, or raise fees substantially without notice to students. This sudden and significant change will drastically increase the tuition instructors will need to charge per student to adjust for this sudden new expense of providing a standard American Heart Association Heartsaver CPR or First Aid class.
This change in price may impact hundreds of thousands of low-income teachers, school districts, day-care workers, construction workers, volunteers, summer camps, coaches, and many others who rely on the American Heart Association to provide relatively low-cost “hands-on” training to lay-rescuers in local communities. A call center employee reported administrators of large organizations such as school districts are calling with shocked dismay that the budget they allotted for distributing first aid and CPR cards among employees will no longer be sufficient to get through the year and this change will force them to provide training to fewer employees than before.
A local AHA instructor, Farley Kautz, owner of NwBestCPR in Bellevue, WA was quoted today as “confused and dumb-struck” by the AHA’s sudden decision to demand more for the certification cards. “We are being told”, he explained, “that the new cost of the cards is designed to be ‘a wash’ with the normal cost of conducting a training, because students are required to have access to a First Aid book already and the price of the book has been lowered an equal amount to offset the cost of the card.” However, in practical reality, he says, many students and organizations, especially those of not-for-profit and educational organizations have not been able to afford the additional fee of one book per student because the average course fee alone has been a significant expense. To alleviate the expense for students it is a common practice for organizations and individual instructors to provide access to the book during class as a courtesy to low-income students. Instructors often maintain multiple copies of course materials at their own expense. Now that the cost of the certification cards has increased so dramatically, instructors and organizations will be forced to charge students the entire amount for course materials to avoid a financial burden.
This sudden change in tuition fees will place additional pressure on students, educational associations and organizations who certify large numbers of employees to seek much less expensive “on-line” training instead where a book and “hands-on” practice is not required. “This would definitely put us local instructors out of business” Kautz explains. It was always challenging to make ends meet as an instructor before, now it will be impossible. I feel terrible for our lower income clients. As more and more instructors lose their livelihoods to on-line courses, this will drastically impact lay-rescuers ability to find affordable, ‘hands-on’ training in their communities.”
The American Heart Association has become known world-wide, along with the Red Cross as a leading provider of classroom based CPR training. Increased pressure from the rise of online training organizations has had a significant impact on individual AHA instructors’ ability to operate and fill classes locally. When classes do not fill to capacity, instructors often lose money. Many instructors report it has become impossible to meet the AHA guidelines for training because it simply didn’t allow them to compete with other training organizations while charging enough make a living.
Medical professionals worldwide are highly aware of the positive impact of “hands-on” training when it comes to the immediate assistance of by-standers during cardiac arrest. The first few minutes of CPR rescue has the most profound impact on a victim’s survival. According to the American Heart Association’s website, cardiac arrest now occurs every 60 seconds in the United States. “Each year, more than 350,000 out-of-hospital cardiac arrests occur in the United States. When a person has a cardiac arrest, survival depends on immediately getting CPR from someone nearby. Almost 90 percent of people who suffer out-of-hospital cardiac arrests die. CPR, especially if performed in the first few minutes of cardiac arrest, can double or triple a person’s chance of survival.”
AHA courses have traditional focused on the necessity of “hands-on” training to develop a level of competence to perform First Aid or CPR. Family members, teachers, coaches and co-workers are almost always the first responders to persons needing immediate First Aid or CPR at home, school, or on the job and it can be critical they know how to perform CPR at a moment’s notice. “I am saddened to see,” Kautz goes on to say, “that such a well-established and community oriented organization would suddenly do this to their volunteers, instructors, and students.”
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Recommended recipients: Southern Poverty Law Center, National Teacher’s Associations, National Association of independent Schools, Americans with Disabilities, Veteran’s Association, Labor and Construction Association and Unions, Day-Care Associations, Factory Worker Associations, and Unions, American Camping Association, Boys Scouts and Girl Scout of America, local news organizations, etc.
—————————–
With no notice to instructors, students, or vendors of American Heart Association First Aid and CPR training courses across the nation, the AHA suddenly and dramatically increased the cost of course certification cards as much as 600%. An American Heart Association official was not available for comment today and wait times for their national 800# telephone hotline have been reported to be over an hour. One operator reported calls are flooding in from distressed instructors around the nation.
Traditionally students have incurred a fee (usually built into the class tuition) of approximately $4 to receive an earned First Aid or CPR certification card. However, on March 3, 2018, with no advanced warning and literally overnight, the AHA raised the price of certification cards to as much as $23.00 per student, forcing instructors to immediately halt local classes, or raise fees substantially without notice to students. This sudden and significant change will drastically increase the tuition instructors will need to charge per student to adjust for this sudden new expense of providing a standard American Heart Association Heartsaver CPR or First Aid class.
This change in price may impact hundreds of thousands of low-income teachers, school districts, day-care workers, construction workers, volunteers, summer camps, coaches, and many others who rely on the American Heart Association to provide relatively low-cost “hands-on” training to lay-rescuers in local communities. A call center employee reported administrators of large organizations such as school districts are calling with shocked dismay that the budget they allotted for distributing first aid and CPR cards among employees will no longer be sufficient to get through the year and this change will force them to provide training to fewer employees than before.
A local AHA instructor, Farley Kautz, owner of NwBestCPR in Bellevue, WA was quoted today as “confused and dumb-struck” by the AHA’s sudden decision to demand more for the certification cards. “We are being told”, he explained, “that the new cost of the cards is designed to be ‘a wash’ with the normal cost of conducting a training, because students are required to have access to a First Aid book already and the price of the book has been lowered an equal amount to offset the cost of the card.” However, in practical reality, he says, many students and organizations, especially those of not-for-profit and educational organizations have not been able to afford the additional fee of one book per student because the average course fee alone has been a significant expense. To alleviate the expense for students it is a common practice for organizations and individual instructors to provide access to the book during class as a courtesy to low-income students. Instructors often maintain multiple copies of course materials at their own expense. Now that the cost of the certification cards has increased so dramatically, instructors and organizations will be forced to charge students the entire amount for course materials to avoid a financial burden.
This sudden change in tuition fees will place additional pressure on students, educational associations and organizations who certify large numbers of employees to seek much less expensive “on-line” training instead where a book and “hands-on” practice is not required. “This would definitely put us local instructors out of business” Kautz explains. It was always challenging to make ends meet as an instructor before, now it will be impossible. I feel terrible for our lower income clients. As more and more instructors lose their livelihoods to on-line courses, this will drastically impact lay-rescuers ability to find affordable, ‘hands-on’ training in their communities.”
The American Heart Association has become known world-wide, along with the Red Cross as a leading provider of classroom based CPR training. Increased pressure from the rise of online training organizations has had a significant impact on individual AHA instructors’ ability to operate and fill classes locally. When classes do not fill to capacity, instructors often lose money. Many instructors report it has become impossible to meet the AHA guidelines for training because it simply didn’t allow them to compete with other training organizations while charging enough make a living.
Medical professionals worldwide are highly aware of the positive impact of “hands-on” training when it comes to the immediate assistance of by-standers during cardiac arrest. The first few minutes of CPR rescue has the most profound impact on a victim’s survival. According to the American Heart Association’s website, cardiac arrest now occurs every 60 seconds in the United States. “Each year, more than 350,000 out-of-hospital cardiac arrests occur in the United States. When a person has a cardiac arrest, survival depends on immediately getting CPR from someone nearby. Almost 90 percent of people who suffer out-of-hospital cardiac arrests die. CPR, especially if performed in the first few minutes of cardiac arrest, can double or triple a person’s chance of survival.”
AHA courses have traditional focused on the necessity of “hands-on” training to develop a level of competence to perform First Aid or CPR. Family members, teachers, coaches and co-workers are almost always the first responders to persons needing immediate First Aid or CPR at home, school, or on the job and it can be critical they know how to perform CPR at a moment’s notice. “I am saddened to see,” Kautz goes on to say, “that such a well-established and community oriented organization would suddenly do this to their volunteers, instructors, and students.”