“Home, sweet home" is that common expression many people say each time they come back home after a long holiday or a full day at work, to meet their kids in a happy mood. But this “happy haven” considered home, is becoming more unsecured as accidents in homes are responsible for many deadly injuries mostly affecting children. Information indicates that the kitchen is said to be the most dangerous place in the house with about 70 per cent of domestic accidents involving children taking place there. The presence of electrical appliances and other possible causes of accidents such as cooking gas are to blame.
Domestic accidents, particularly those affecting children are gradually being considered a public health problem today with various medical emergency units in the country recording more than five cases each week. A staff at the Unit for the Coordination of Emergency Cases at the Yaounde Central Hospital says children are the most frequent in consultations in the emergency units with cases related to domestic accidents. “There is no week that a child below eight years is not brought to the unit as a result of burns from a cooking pot or an electrical shock from a house appliance”, the staff said.
On Thursday January 26, Mama Ingrid arrived at the Unit with a four year-old baby with serious burns on the body because she attempted carrying a pot of boiled water within the house. Experts say even if a child has a highly developed survival instinct that allows him/her to react to instability, loneliness, darkness, fire or water, their natural curiosity drives them to want to discover the world with their fingertips, thereby exposing them to domestic accidents. Added to this is the proliferation of home appliances such as blenders, mixers, knives, can openers which kids are always curious to touch or play with.
Last month at the Nsam neighbourhood in Yaounde, two kids, aged four each, were killed in a fire incident at the residence of their grand-mother. Another regrettable situation is the architectural nature of some homes that has cost the lives of many children. Some months back at a one-storey building in the Bonanjo neighbourhood in Douala, a four-year-old child fell off the first floor and gave up the ghost. In addition, another major cause of child accidents are poisonings, of which almost all occur by accident. Cases of children drinking toxic drugs or poisonous substances at home, in the belief that it was water are recurrent in the society as well.
