Generation of children may die before parents

DISEASES in children that could be easily prevented are becoming so common that a whole generation of youngsters could die before their parents, doctors warned yesterday.

Obesity in children is a continuing problem Picture posed by model Obesity in children is a continuing problem (Picture posed by model)

Staff at a leading children’s hospital say they are increasingly spending valuable time tackling conditions that could easily be prevented, such as obesity, tooth decay, alcohol abuse and the effects of passive smoking.

They claim more than £1million a year and hundreds of hours of staff time are being spent treating the problems.

Steve Ryan, medical director of Alder Hey Hospital in Liverpool said preventable conditions were also diverting vital resources away from more serious illnesses.

“It just shouldn’t be happening,” he said.

“These children should not be suffering from these problems and they should not be here at this hospital,” he said.

“People are starting to say maybe this is a generation where children will be dying before their parents.”

Alder Hey is one of the busiest hospitals in the world, treating more than 200,000 patients a year.

But last night’s BBC Panorama programme highlighted the cases of young people who should never have needed to be there.

It focused on several departments at the hospital including the dental department, which carries out over half its 1,000 dental operations every year on children under the age of six.

Another 500 to 1,000 children a year end up in the hospital because they have been exposed to their parents’ smoking.

And obesity is also putting a strain on resources, with admissions linked to obesity in adults and children up from 5,056 cases in 2007-08 to 8,085 for 2008-09.

This week Liverpool City Council was criticised for making plans to ban the word obese and replace it with “unhealthy weight”, in case it upset children.

But medical staff at Alder Hey said some basic health messages were still not being understood by parents. Dr Ryan said: “I think what a terrible shame it is that we have to be doing these things that we shouldn’t be doing .

“All the time we’re under pressure to use taxpayers’ money we receive in this hospital as effectively as possible, so it is awfully disappointing that the money’s wasted. We could be using that money to do amazing things.”

He said the very real prospect of a generation of children dying before their parents was “a sleeping giant”.

Dr Ryan added: “I think that we’ve never been here before. We’ve never faced this epidemic.

“It didn’t happen in history. There were cholera epidemics, measles epidemics, whooping cough epidemics.

“This is subtle. It is in the background. But it’s massive.”

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