Plunket defends pool fencing

Press, 29 July 1989, Page 8

Plunket defends pool fencing

PA Wellington Up to 80 per cent of young children drowned in domestic swimming pools from 1982-86 would not have died if the Fencing of Swimming Pools Act had been in force, according to the Plunket Society. A society report issued this week on the 36 drownings among one to

five-year-olds in that period says alternatives to the 1988 fencing law — such as teaching water skills to infants, fencing property boundaries and use of pool covers — would not have prevented pre-schooler drownings. The act requires owners of domestic pools to completely fence, to a minimum standard, their pool

area. Eighty per cent of the drownings over the four years occurred in pools with no barriers, or barriers that would not comply with requirements of the pool fencing law. Fifty per cent of the deaths happened in pools with no barrier at all, the report says. The high-risk one to

three age group will be kept out of pools by simple physical barriers, it said. The report says pool covers cause more problems than they solve. They can conceal a missing child from searchers and floating covers especially can make a child believe the cover is safe to walk on.