LOCKING IN LANDLORDS ON SAFETY
(Saturday Telegraph March 25th 2011) By: Kate Sikora (Health Reporter).
Landlords will be responsible for ensuring all windows have locks or safety devices under proposals aimed at stopping children falling from windows.
Just days after the eighth child this year fell from a window. The Children’s Hospital at Westmead called on the State Government to legislate to make apartments and buildings secure.
Doctors want to make landlords responsible for fitting locks and other security devices to stop children opening windows and falling out.
Trauma surgeon Professor Danny Cass said community and government inaction was a form of ‘child neglect.’
I don’t want to have to sit next to a new set of parents and tell them they have to turn off their child’s life support, Professor Cass said.
I hope the next premier makes this a priority and changes legislation because, as a citizen and a clinician. I believe education alone won’t fix this.
The hospital’s report found recently arrived migrants were more vulnerable to the risk, with many renting and unable to speak English.
The Children’s Hospital at Westmead treated 169 children between 1998 and 2008 after falls from a window or balcony, including two reported deaths.
At least a quarter fell on concrete, causing 40 serious head injuries.
Leah Ranapia, 4, is in hospital after falling from her family’s top-floor window in Warrick Farm on Tuesday.
The Daily Telegraph had complained for tighter safety measures to prevent falls, launching the 10:10:10 campaign in 2009 to educate householders not to open their windows more than 10cm.
Dr. Cass said legislative changes overseas had led to a dramatic reduction in falling figures.
The committee also wants the Strata Schemes Management Act amended to force body corporate of apartment buildings to have all common windows fitted with devices so they cannot open the window more than 10cm.
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