Child protection specialists gave the level of child safety in the nation a narrow pass, but rated playground safety the biggest concern for parents, according to a survey published by the Jing Chuan Child Safety Foundation on Child Safety Day yesterday.
The survey was conducted among 2,242 elementary-school students, their parents and social workers last month through the middle of this month and was released at a press conference held by the foundation in Taipei yesterday.
Respondents who identified themselves as parents scored the nation’s overall level of child safety at 83.19 points, compared with 68.51 points given by respondents who said they were child protection experts, the survey showed.
However, all of the groups gave playground safety the lowest score.
A further breakdown of the survey showed that nearly 68 percent of the parents take their child to an indoor playground at least once a month, which costs them between NT$100 and NT$1,000.
Approximately 10 percent of the children have been injured in a playground, with the three most common types of injuries being bruises (27 percent), injuries after tripping (21.6 percent) and head wounds (18.8 percent).
The survey found that only 20 percent of playground operators have sought to improve the conditions of their facilities after accidents occur.
A mother surnamed Chiu (邱) recounted a mishap at the press conference to raise public awareness of the issue.
“About a year ago, I took my kids to an indoor recreational park that was on the second and third floors of a building. When we were taking the stairs to the third floor, I slipped, hit my head and lost consciousness,” Chiu said.
Chiu said she felt nauseous and began vomiting shortly after she returned home and was later diagnosed with concussion.
“If even a grown-up like myself could get hurt in there, there is no doubt that a child faces a much higher risk of injury,” Chiu said.
Foundation chief executive Lin Yueh-chin (林月琴) said the rapid increase in the number of child recreational centers in recent years had been accompanied by growing concerns about safety.
“That is attributable to three problems — the absence of a competent authority to oversee such establishments, the lack of laws regulating the safety of equipment and the large number of unsafe facilities,” Chiu said.
Chiu urged parents to choose wisely when looking for a place to take their children, while calling on the government to make every effort to ensure a safe and secure environment for future generations.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
REVENGE TRAVEL: A surge in ticket prices should ease this year, but inflation would likely keep tickets at a higher price than before the pandemic Scoot is to offer six additional flights between Singapore and Northeast Asia, with all routes transiting Taipei from April 1, as the budget airline continues to resume operations that were paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, a Scoot official said on Thursday. Vice president of sales Lee Yong Sin (李榮新) said at a gathering with reporters in Taipei that the number of flights from Singapore to Japan and South Korea with a stop in Taiwan would increase from 15 to 21 each week. That change means the number of the Singapore-Taiwan-Tokyo flights per week would increase from seven to 12, while Singapore-Taiwan-Seoul
POOR PREPARATION: Cultures can form on food that is out of refrigeration for too long and cooking does not reliably neutralize their toxins, an epidemiologist said Medical professionals yesterday said that suspected food poisoning deaths revolving around a restaurant at Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 Store in Taipei could have been caused by one of several types of bacterium. Ho Mei-shang (何美鄉), an epidemiologist at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Biomedical Sciences, wrote on Facebook that the death of a 39-year-old customer of the restaurant suggests the toxin involved was either “highly potent or present in massive large quantities.” People who ate at the restaurant showed symptoms within hours of consuming the food, suggesting that the poisoning resulted from contamination by a toxin and not infection of the
BAD NEIGHBORS: China took fourth place among countries spreading disinformation, with Hong Kong being used as a hub to spread propaganda, a V-Dem study found Taiwan has been rated as the country most affected by disinformation for the 11th consecutive year in a study by the global research project Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem). The nation continues to be a target of disinformation originating from China, and Hong Kong is increasingly being used as a base from which to disseminate that disinformation, the report said. After Taiwan, Latvia and Palestine ranked second and third respectively, while Nicaragua, North Korea, Venezuela and China, in that order, were the countries that spread the most disinformation, the report said. Each country listed in the report was given a score,