Africa-Press – South-Africa. Burnt with an iron by his mother, a nine-year-old boy is just one of the abuse and neglect cases that the Red Cross War Memorial Children’s Hospital sees every month.
To mark International Child Protection Day, the hospital briefed the media on the heartbreaking cases that pass through its doors, and the work they do to keep children safe.
Dr Rowan Dunkley, of the hospital’s child protection team, said protecting children went beyond simply identifying child abuse.
He said that since the start of the year, the hospital had seen 183 cases of abuse against children- 69 of these cases were physical abuse and 50 were cases of neglect.
Many of these cases were identified as abuse by the hospital’s trauma unit, Dunkley said.
He shared a case study of a nine-year-old boy who had been treated for burn wounds at the trauma centre. Despite medical staff being informed that he had sustained burns when he accidentally knocked over an iron, they suspected there was more at play.
It was later established that the child had attempted to iron his own school shirt while his mother was away from home, allegedly using drugs. In the process, he burned the shirt. His punishment, on his mother’s return, had been several burns to his upper body.
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The paediatrician said that while the burns had been treated in two weeks, the child had stayed in the hospital for another 10 weeks while social workers and healthcare practitioners worked together to find him a safe place to go to.
Dunkley added that providing care to abused and neglected children required extensive partnerships between different departments in the hospital, and social workers, police, and schools.
Among the concerning cases were gunshot wounds sustained by children, said the hospital’s chief executive, Anita Parbhoo.
The hospital had treated six gunshot wounds so far this year, and Parbhoo said the trend in injuries was changing.
She said:
The hospital announced a five-year plan to bolster its child protection unit, which would include integrated services, training, child-friendly environments, and improved technology.
Speaking at the event, Western Cape Health MEC Nomafrench Mbombo said children were impacted by violence between adults.
“The issue of children dying from stray bullets and crime is still happening. When adults are killing each other, there is an impact on children. We can do as much as we can, but it’s happening in the community,” she said.
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