Incidents of children being injured in preschool facilities detailed in Tusla report
A child was accidentally pierced by another child’s EpiPen in preschool, according to the latest round-up of serious incidents reported to authorities by early years care providers.
In other incidents, a child choked on a piece of marshmallow and needed medical intervention to remove it; another child was headbutted by a classmate and later suffered a seizure; and another broke their thigh bone after falling off a slide.
Most of the 204 serious incidents reported to Tusla last year involved trips over or falls from play equipment and furniture, or collisions with other children, resulting in fractures, stitches, or chipped teeth.
Some involved the actions of staff members.
In one case, a child suffered a partially dislocated elbow after being lifted by their forearms. In all, 131 children were injured to the extent that they needed medical treatment. Other incidents included 11 cases of children going missing.
The examples are included in the annual report of Tusla’s early years inspectorate, which is responsible for inspecting the country’s 4,484 preschools, playgroups, nurseries, creches, and daycare facilities.
The inspectorate carried out 2,033 inspections and found that over 90% of services inspected in relation to premises, staffing levels, and first aid were compliant but only 55% were compliant with regulations relating to safeguarding of health, safety, and welfare of children.
Compliance was lowest in relation to record keeping, with just 38% of services inspected satisfying those regulations. One third (32%) of services were fully compliant with all regulations while the rest were, on average, non-compliant with two regulations. Twenty breached eight or more regulations.
In one example of multiple breaches, the facility’s playroom was sparsely equipped, toys were stored in a locked press or on a shelving unit turned in against a wall, there was no specific routine to the children’s day, and transitions from one level to the next were described as “chaotic”.
In other cases, dangerous items such as bleach and plastic bags were left within reach of children, staff failed to wash their hands after nappy changes, blind cords were a strangulation risk, doors were unsecured, and temperature control was absent from rooms.
An analysis of 500 randomly selected inspection reports found that in eight out of 10 cases where breaches were recorded, the service providers took verified actions to remedy the issues while one in 10 were due for verification.
A total of 276 complaints were investigated by the Inspectorate, of which 196 were analysed for the report. Of those, 38 were upheld and 40 partially upheld while 23 were withdrawn and 78 were not upheld.
There are plans to begin publishing the inspection reports on the Tusla website so that the public can easily access them in the coming months.
Brian Lee, Tusla’s director of quality assurance, said: “It is essential that standards are monitored and maintained so that infants, toddlers, and children have optimum opportunities to learn and develop in high-quality professional early years settings.”
