He pointed out that the majority of the children sustaining severe injuries due to accidents die even before being brought to a hospital while around 150 of them succumb to their injuries subsequent to being admitted to hospital.

According to Dr. Jayaratne, in order to prevent children from dying before they are brought to a hospital, a more broader health system is needed in order to prevent children dying of their accident injuries before getting to a hospital. He said at a time when the country has managed to reduce the infant mortality rate drastically, it is ironic that the number of children dying of accidents are rising.

Causes of child accidents

The main identified causes of child deaths in the country are murders, motor accidents, drowning, falling, burns and poisoning.
Around 50% of child deaths occur among children over 10 years, doctors point out.
According to 2015 police records, 4,012 children faced road accidents while 1087 of them sustained severe injuries and 152 of them succumbed to their injuries.

In Sri Lanka, a child dies every seven hours due to some form of accident while weekly around 50 children die due to accident related injuries.
Every two minutes a child is hospitalised in some part of the country due to accident related injuries which amounts to around 31 children being injures every hour, statistics reveal.

Wearing child helmets

According to Dr. Jayaratne, countrywide awareness programmes were launched at health services office level from yesterday, marking World Children’s Day, with the aim of educating parents on the importance of children being made to wear child helmets.

He revealed this at a press conference held yesterday at the Colombo Health Education Secretariat under the theme “Preventing child accidents”. Director General Health Services Dr. Palitha Mahipala also expressed views.
(Divaina)