Doctors of the National Institute of Children’s Diseases (NÚDCH) in Bratislava in urgent income outpatient clinics have seen a significantly increased number of intoxicated children. There were 17 of them over the past week. They appeal to their parents to be interested in how their children spend time outside school and home and instruct them about the risks of enjoying addictive substances and the effects of social networks. TASR informed the spokeswoman of the Institute Dana Kamenická.
“In the summer months, doctors on urgent reception more often encounter alcohol and other addictive habitk. Only over the past weekend on urgent reception, up to nine children with the toxic effect of addictive substances, which doctors provided urgent medical care, needed help. The problem of increased risk of intoxication in this period and the approaching at the end of the school year are drawing attention to every year, ”said Núdch director Peter Bartoň.
As the head of the emergency income department Marcel Brenner approached, the children came to the hospital with a disorder of consciousness and were hypothermic. “From addictive substances, the children consumed ethyl alcohol, and in one case it was combined with THC, and one child was intoxicated ‘only’ THC, “ approached. He noted that while about two to three children under the influence of alcohol were brought to the workplace during the current year, they treated 17 last week. “Most often they were ethyl alcohol, THC and HHC,” he added.
Doctors warn that during events such as the end of the school year, various events, festivals, concerts and the like, several intoxicated children come to urgent income in one day. “Alcohol levels are sometimes surprisingly high in these children, often hypothermic and consciousness disorders. There is a risk of inhaling gastric content with subsequent suffocation. Furthermore, there are secondary injuries, such as falls under the means of transport or from height and others, ” explained Brenner.
He pointed out that the younger the person drinks an alcoholic beverage, the more dangerous it is, as children cannot estimate the effect or dose of alcohol and the related consequences on their organism. “Alcohol consumption, or in combination with other addictive substances, is also dangerous because they can remain unnoticed by adults until symptoms of intoxication occur. It is often the case that the emergency medical service to urgent intake will bring the child unconscious found by accidental passers -by lying in an abandoned place, even though they consumed alcohol in the company of peers, ” added the headmaster.
The circumstances in which these cases occur is expected to be predicted and can therefore be easily prevented. “Older children specifically seek the opportunity and, together with their peers, sip alcoholic beverages as a rule outside homes, such as on the street, parks and other places. In younger children, it is rather accidental consumption of alcohol when they tasted or accidentally drank alcohol at an unguarded moment, ”he added
