One in 10 children aged up to 3 years who arrive at the children clinics of the National Health System (ESY) hospitals with injuries are victims of abuse.
25% of all fractures in children under the age of three is also due to abuse and 3% to 5% of these children dies or is left with serious disabilities, a research conducted by the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (EKPA) has found.
Based on data from the Children’s Health Institute, 4,000 children are seriously abused every year in Greece. More than 100 children die, and as many are left with severe disabilities, as a result of the abuse. The actual total number of annual child abuse incidents is estimated at 20,000.
“And of course there are thousands of children on the streets of Athens and other cities who are victims of sexual exploitation,” said the president of the Hellenic Association of Social Pediatrics of Northern Greece, Sofia Karagiannopoulou, during a discussion on child abuse organized by the Medical Association of Thessaloniki.
“Health workers, and especially pediatricians, we are the closest people to the family. We like to say that we are the best advocates of a child’s health,” noted Karagiannopoulou.
“In a current clinical examination the pediatrician should be able to recognize when a child is being abused, especially when one or more risk factors are present,” she underlines.
She added that “as pediatricians, we are the closest to the family, we are the children’s… advocates. What we pay attention to first is their environment, if the parents are addicted to substances or have psychological problems as well as injuries to babies under six months who are not from birth. That is, where there is a mismatch in his development stage and in the event, for example, a two-month-old child will not fall out of his crib, this will rarely happen. Or an eight-month-old child will not fall down the stairs while many times the accidents are attributed to the older sibling! In other words, we should pay attention to the history and if it is observed… ambiguity in the description of events”.
Karagiannopoulou stressed that pediatricians should be especially careful when the child comes from a family with members who abuse alcohol or drugs, with psychological problems or who still use physical punishment.
source: topontiki.gr
