Suffer the children

• Source: The Global Times
• [20:27 June 09 2009]
• Comments

By Zhang Nan and Yin Hang

As the last of 10 million young Chinese finished perhaps the biggest exam of their lives yesterday, the Global Times examines three examples of young people’s lives and problems.

No 5 Primary School of the Kunming Iron & Steel Group enjoy sports day on December 4, 2008. Photo: courtesy of the school

18,500 accidental deaths a year

Behind the thin white curtain, the wailing persisted. Little Zhu, 11 months old, had to be kept behind bacteria-proof gauze at the Children’s Hospital, Zhejiang University School of Medicine, wrote reporter Zhang Shu of Hangzhou Daily.

Blisters covered his body, some as big as grapes, others like ripe cherries. Some sections of his skin were red, others black the size of his father’s palm.

They had tied his hands and feet to the bed frame to prevent chafing of the 25 percent burns.

The wailing went on. Sat outside, little Zhu’s father recalled, “I was cooking noodles with the rice cooker this morning.

“When the water boiled, I wanted to add some vegetables to it, so I left the cooker. My kid was in a baby-walker nearby.

“While I was washing the vegetables, I heard him screaming. I rushed in and found the cooker, the walker and my baby all over the ground.”

Still, the wailing went on.

The father turned toward his boy. “My son held the cooker flex in his hand, and he was wet from head to toe. The boiling water was streaming on his little arms and legs.”

Due to the severe burns, Zhu had been transferred from two hospitals – Xiashadongfang Hospital and Jianqiao hospital – both of which could not handle the severity of the situation.

The wailing had not stopped.

“Parents always think this is an accident,” Jiang Runsong, a doctor in the burns surgery department, told Hangzhou Daily.

“As a matter of fact, it’s inevitable.

“In many cases, parents’ negligence made this happen.”

Accidents are the no.1 cause of under 14-year-old children’s deaths in China, according to a 2008 study by Song Wenzhen, chief director of the Children’s Department of the National Working Committee of Women and Children under the State Council. She found every year in China about 10 million children suffer serious accidents: 100,000 die and 400,000 become disabled.

“The dead are just the tip of iceberg,” said Lou Jianhua, director of Shanghai Children’s Medical Center.“Under the iceberg is a huge number of injured children.”

Song found among 28,000 residents in 18 Beijing areas, 139 children were seriously injured every day. Burns were the main killer. Drowning and road accidents came next. More than 18,500 Chinese mainland children die every year in road accidents: 2.5 times higher than Europe and 2.6 times more than the United States.

“Schools and kindergartens should train students on safety sense and skills,” Song wrote in her report. Education on health and safety is an efficient way of avoiding many of these types of accidents, she claimed.