Essential tips to prevent children getting burned

AS WINTER creeps in, hospitals in the Western Cape brace for a devastating and familiar pattern: a sharp rise in young children arriving with horrific burns - many of them avoidable.

- JELLYBEAN JOURNAL REPORTER

In just one year, the Red Cross War Memorial Children's Hospital treated over 3,000 children for burns, with 586 needing admission. Most were scalded by boiling water, hot drinks or bathwater and more than 80% of these cases were entirely preventable.

"It happened so quickly. One minute I was preparing the cold water for her bath and the next, she was hurt. She pulled the kettle's cord and the hot water from the kettle caused burns," said a mother whose daughter was admitted to the burns unit.