Should patients in cardiac arrest be taken to hospital?

A head to head debate on the BMJ looks at whether patients in cardiac arrest should be taken to hospital.  Jonathan Benger argues no, just 10% of people who have a cardiac arrest outside of hospital survive to discharge from hospital. Hospital has nothing to offer the 60,000 people who cardiac arrest outside hospital, he argues, and the journey to hospital can actually be harmful. "Preparing patients for transport, moving them, and driving them to hospital lead to pauses in CPR [cardio-pulmonary resuscitation] and suboptimal chest compressions even with the most skilled and committed staff." Paramedics are the experts in dealing with out-of-hospital cardiac arrest and the first few minutes are the most important anyway.  However, Bruce Adams argues that patients should be taken to hospital as guidelines on when to stop CPR are fallible and advances in CPR research are emerging, "most notably in extracorporeal cardiopulmonary resuscitation and in the regionalisation of centres that specialse in new coronary interventions and therapeutic hypothermia." What do you think? Should patients in cardiac arrest be taken to hospital?     
Source: Doc2Doc BMJ Cardiology - Category: Cardiology Authors: Source Type: forums