BENGALURU: Approximately 60,000 children die in India every year due to unintentional injuries, according to a NIMHANS study. “A majority of these, that is 41%, are due to road accidents, 19% from drowning, followed by 10% due to fire accidents and 6 % by falls,” said Dr Gururaj G, Senior Professor and Dean - Neuro Sciences, NIMHANS.
“Those who don’t die, suffer lifelong disabilities. For example, a brain injury can result in cerebral palsy wherein the child starts suffering from violent behaviour. In 45 per cent of the cases when it comes to road accidents, the child is a pedestrian,” he explained.“Trauma care is expensive in urban areas and deficient in rural areas which means the middle and lower classes cannot access it,” he said.
A national report titled ‘Advancing Child Safety in India: Implementation is Key’ was released on Wednesday by National institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences (NIMHANS) and Underwriters Laboratories (UL) , a global safety science company. The study was done over a year from September 2018 to March 2019.
“Most of the road accidents happen when the children are getting into a vehicle or off it during pick up or drop. It is not necessarily during transportation. There is no clear place for the vehicles to pull up. For instance, a child could fall when the bus starts moving as he/she is getting into it,” said Suresh Sugavanam, vice president and managing director in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa for UL.
The report includes recommendations at the policy level as well as for road safety.
An excerpt reads, “Schools must inform and work with local administrative bodies to implement speed reduction strategies like setting speed limits to less than 30km, approproate display of signanges, enforcement of speed limits, erecting speed bumps at frequent intervals and elevated pedestrian crossings.”