DEATH FROM SCALDING

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 57, 8 March 1928, Page 12

DEATH FROM SCALDING

♦ FUETHER PRECAUTIONS TAKEN A correspondent, '' A Mother of Thrco," writes to "The Post" with referenco to the inquest on Tuesday on tho death of a child, four years of age, in the Wellington Hospital, the result of scalding caused by tho child turning on tho hot water tap of a bath, during the absence of tho nurse from tho bath-room for a minuto or .two. After hearing the evidence, tho Coroner said that tho occurrence was purely accidental, and returned a verdict accordingly. The correspondent asks if nurses are allowed to leave child patients in a bath-room undor the circumstances stated at tho inquest. . The Hospital authorities state that some two yoars ago, in order to preV3nt such an accident from scalding occurring, the hot water taps in tho children's baths were removed from the ordinary place at the end of the bath and were installed high up on the wall of the bath-room, out of reach of children. In this case the child had been left on a bench beneath the hot water tap, and unfortunately was able to reach tho tap duriig the short absonco of tho nurse. Further precautionary measures have already been taken, and the hot water, when heeded, will have to bo turned on by the nurse using a special key, and it will be the nurse's duty to remove the key once tho bath is prepared.