Dear Readers

Dian, who writes Lifeline from Bridgeport, Portmore, St Catherine, had a scare recently when her 2 1/2-year-old son found his bottle of chewable children's vitamins and practically ate the entire contents as 'sweetie' before she found him enjoying his unplanned snack.

She saw her doctor after she tried to induce vomiting, with only partial success. The doctor said the child was "OK" but advised her to give him a lot of fluids to drink. The following week one of her friends children did almost the same thing when she drank over a half bottle of children's pain and fever syrup.

Dian says she and her friend are both very lucky the children are all right and she asks Lifeline to suggest some home safety tips to help prevent further mishaps.

pay attention

Statistically, most accidents do occur at home so it makes sense to do everything possible to prevent household accidents. Often these accidents occur when we are busy with a task and are not paying proper attention to other things happening around us. For example, chatting with friends and watching TV while cutting up sugar cane resulting in a 2-inch long and fairly deep laceration to the hand which was holding the sugar cane. This actually occurred recently with another individual known to Lifeline.

Quite regularly, people run downstairs and slip on children's toys, or catch their toe/shoe in the edge of a carpet and trip themselves.

Vitamins and medications are often left out on kitchen countertops, dining room tables or bureau tops, where three and four years olds are now at just the right height and increased level of curiosity with their environment to pick up these drugs directly or climb on a chair to do so. Even worse, can be the outcome when bleach, acidic or caustic liquid materials and other cleaning liquids or solids are stored in pretty tins or popular soft-drink bottles and left at floor level near the kitchen or in the garage. Terrible, horrible, morbidity and fatalities result from this!

be especially careful

This is why families need to be especially careful when the very young or elderly are present in the household. Medications should ideally be stored in their original bottles or packets, away from heat and moisture in a medicine chest high on the wall, or on a high shelf in the kitchen, preferable inside a cabinet which can be locked.

To facilitate elderly family members who may have problems with their short-term memory and be inclined to take medication too often, or not at all. Pill dispensers should be used. These are usually labelled with the days of the week, with separate compartments for morning and night medication.

There are a number of simple precautions which can be taken to secure safety at home:

● Never over polish tile floors which can become slippery.

● Spilt water on the floor is also hazardous as it makes the floor slippery.

● Do not use electrical appliances with a frayed or damaged cord as this can cause a fire or electrocution.

● Apply non-slip surfaces to the bottoms of bathtubs on shower floors to prevent slipping.

● Install handrails in bath and shower units when elderly people are in the home. This prevents falls which lead to leg, hip and spine fractures.

● Rugs in the home should be placed where they will not easily slip on the floor and in a manner that the edge of the carpet is not rolled up or 'dog eared'.

● Glass doors should be indi-cated by affixing something coloured on their surface to prevent someone walking into them resulting in loss of consciousness or lacerations.

● Children should wear helmets when riding bicycles.

● People should wear goggles when mowing the lawn.

● Swimming pools should be covered over or access restricted by some method when they are not being used.

● Don't play with fireworks.

● When using electrical tools or sharp instrument pay attention to the task. Focus on the task and ensure that a proper light sources available.

A health emergency (first aid) kit should be assembled and kept in the home and emergency phone numbers should be recorded and kept in a readily accessible place.

Lifeline urges interested persons to take the time to learn cardiopulmonary resuscitation and first aid. The Red Cross, YMCA and several other organisations offer these courses at various times.

Write to:

Lifeline

PO Box 1731

Kgn 8