"Political Apathy Killing Kids"

New Zealand's Pediatric Society has told a parliamentary committee that the country has the world's worst rates of child death and injury from preventable causes in the developed world, a damming indictment of the state of the nation's health service, coming hot on the heels of admissions that maternity services were stretched to breaking point.

Third world, poverty and overcrowding
In a Dominion Post report by Ruth Hill and Kelly Burns it's been revealed that the country's own doctors are saying that New Zealand's hospitals are overwhelmed by epidemics of infectious diseases associated with poverty and overcrowding, such as skin infections, whooping cough, chronic lung disease, pneumonia and rheumatic fever:

"Kiwi kids are dying in accidents and from abuse and Third World diseases due to political apathy, doctors and child welfare experts say.

MPs were told yesterday by the Paediatric Society that New Zealand has the worst rates of death and injury from preventable causes in the developed world and much more is needed to reverse the trend.

And in a report due out today, the children's commissioner calls for extra funding to educate parents about the dangers of shaking babies, as it reveals why about 45 children under five are seriously injured and five killed each year at the hands of carers.

Starship children's hospital paediatric surgeon James Hamill told Parliament's health select committee a third of all child deaths were due to trauma, but the only paediatric intensive-care unit in New Zealand was at Starship.

Overseas studies show children in adult intensive-care units are twice as likely to die compared with patients in paediatric ICUs.

Dr Hamill, who chairs the College of Surgeons trauma committee, said while it wasn't possible for every hospital to have a paediatric ICU, national standards for dealing with child trauma victims and better data collection were needed.

MPs were also urged to consider other measures, such as 20kmh zones around schools, restricting the minimum age for a full driver's licence to at least 18 and better restraints for children in cars.

Capital and Coast paediatric surgeon Brendon Bowkett said hospitals were being squeezed by epidemics of infectious diseases associated with poverty and overcrowding, such as skin infections, whooping cough, chronic lung disease, pneumonia and rheumatic fever..."

Read on here: Political apathy killing kids

Regular readers of this blog will know that

• New Zealand was recently placed a shameful 30 out of 43 developed nations in the Save the Children Annual Children's Index. The countries that topped the list in order - Sweden, Italy, Netherlands, France, Austria, Iceland, Malta, Japan, Luxembourg and Spain.

• New Zealand is ranked third worst country for child maltreatment deaths

Now that the country's own health professionals are sounding the alarm bells perhaps politicians will sit up and take this issue seriously.