Children drowning: Thailand still worst in ASEAN and twice world average

[webfact]

Children drowning: Thailand still worst in ASEAN and twice world average

 

Picture: Daily News

 

An international conference has been told that despite improvements Thailand's safety record regarding drowning deaths among children is still the worst in ASEAN. 

 

And the death rate in the kingdom of children up to 15 is TWICE that of the world average.

 

About 322,000 children have died worldwide from drowning since 2016.

 

And more needs to be done to bring down the death toll in Thailand, delegates at the SEA Regional Meeting on Drowning Prevention heard. 

 

Dr Suwanchai Wattanayingcharoenchai of the Thai public health ministry said that deaths from drowning among the under 15s had decreased from a peak of 1,500 per year to 681 in 2018. 

 

This is due to education programs and work by agencies at state and local level over the last two decades and the last ten years in particular. 

 

But the figure was still "number one" in ASEAN an unwanted statistic with children in the 5 to 9 age group particularly vulnerable, said Dr Supreda Adulyanon.

 

More needs to be done to bring the figures down much lower. 

 

Daily News reported on the conference without making any comparisons to the death toll among children on the Thai roads. 

 

Thaivisa notes that while drowning deaths among children may be down fatalities from road accidents - especially young people on motorcycles not wearing helmets - now dwarfs the drowning statistics. 

 

-- © Copyright Thai Visa News 2019-08-05

Follow Thaivisa on LINE for breaking Thailand news and visa info

[poohy]

My 20 year old stepdaughter is currently staying with us, SHE is definitely on borrowed time.

[RotBenz8888]

Thais just can't see dangers and anticipate what might happen. 

[otherstuff1957]

I have heard that some Thai people don't want their kids to learn to swim, because they will become comfortable near water and will drown more easily!

[bowerboy]

We have a nice pool in our village (gated village, moo ban or whatever you would call it).

 

I regularly see 4 and 5 year old children swimming in the pool completely unsupervised...and I don’t mean Mum at the pool but head buried in iPhone. I mean parents at home while 4 and 5 year olds “swimming” in the pool. None of them can even swim...they jump in and can just barely make it back to the side without drowning.

 

And these are 1. Middle class Thai families and 2. Kids of guys who work offshore and whose wives take care of the kids while they are away.

 

If it is that bad in that socioeconomic group then god help the lower socio ecomonmic group.

 

Totally unforgivaeable by the Leuk Kreung families in my view.

[Snackbar]

Every parent’s responsibility to teach their kid to swim. 

 

Don't go outside in the rain, you’ll get sick. 

 

Pure ignorance

[masuk]

51 minutes ago, RotBenz8888 said:

Thais just can't see dangers and anticipate what might happen. 

A good example was using an abandoned quarry in Chiang Mai as a swimming pool.

It was extremely deep, and according to press reports, there were no life lines, no lifesaving float rings, no ladders.   

For many children, jumping in was a lot of fun - and final!

The danger was extremely obvious - but no one acted on it.

On the plus side, Rotary in Chiang Mai were running swimming classes for kids.

[Pungdo]

Part of the problem is the almost total lack of pool safety fences in Thailand, typical safety last thinking that is the standard here.

[BritManToo]

2 minutes ago, Pungdo said:

Part of the problem is the almost total lack of pool safety fences in Thailand, typical safety last thinking that is the standard here.

I thought most died in the sea, rivers and lakes.

Are you suggesting they fence those off?

 

How many Thai kids died in swimming pools?

[graeme64]

1 hour ago, bowerboy said:

We have a nice pool in our village (gated village, moo ban or whatever you would call it).

 

I regularly see 4 and 5 year old children swimming in the pool completely unsupervised...and I don’t mean Mum at the pool but head buried in iPhone. I mean parents at home while 4 and 5 year olds “swimming” in the pool. None of them can even swim...they jump in and can just barely make it back to the side without drowning.

 

And these are 1. Middle class Thai families and 2. Kids of guys who work offshore and whose wives take care of the kids while they are away.

 

If it is that bad in that socioeconomic group then god help the lower socio ecomonmic group.

 

Totally unforgivaeable by the Leuk Kreung families in my view.

slightly off topic but a friends wife had to collect something from me when he was off shore - drives her youngest kid (anout 3 or 4) 1 side of phuket to the other no helmet. They have a CAR!! WHY. I think my mate would literally (and I mean literally) kill he if she did something stupid and one of his kids ended up dead. Exactly what you are saying - relatively well of families just not caring or taking the time to make a reasonable effort. sad.  

[Matzzon]

The most strange thing I read sometimes, is when people get saved by a person that drowned during the rescue. Does that mean that the saved ones would have made it anyway?

[bowerboy]

39 minutes ago, BritManToo said:

I thought most died in the sea, rivers and lakes.

Are you suggesting they fence those off?

 

How many Thai kids died in swimming pools?

 

At least 3 that I know about personally in the last 12 months in the area that we live in.

[bowerboy]

26 minutes ago, graeme64 said:

slightly off topic but a friends wife had to collect something from me when he was off shore - drives her youngest kid (anout 3 or 4) 1 side of phuket to the other no helmet. They have a CAR!! WHY. I think my mate would literally (and I mean literally) kill he if she did something stupid and one of his kids ended up dead. Exactly what you are saying - relatively well of families just not caring or taking the time to make a reasonable effort. sad.  

 

Inknow that drives me insane...offshore guy doing well and has bought the family a flash SUV by then the wife drives the kids around on the motorbike with no helmet for no reason whatsoever.

 

mind you though many of those offshore guys do exactly the same thing when they come back off leave (and they are working in an industry where safety is absolutely drilled into you all day and everyday).

[bust]

So whaddaya reckon!! 

Teach ‘em to drive or teach ‘em to swim?

Which would save more lives? ????

[Tropposurfer]

Sad sad statistics☹️

How sad for the kiddies who die alone this way, and for parents or carers who loose sight of them or get distracted for a few moments and it’s too late.

We’re so lucky in Oz we have great programs to teach swimming and while kids still drown here the numbers have fallen dramatically since awareness and teaching from infancy has become normal.

living in a country which is rich by comparison helps support this turn around in stats of course.

[SuwadeeS]

Just another negative record.

[simtemple]

Don't worry, be happy. Life is cheap, down here in the land of smiling low IQ idiots. 

Highest in road fatalities. Highest in child swimming fatalities. Highest in every criterion that demonstrates a total lack of humanity. Scum of the earth. 

[BobbyL]

Again, like the shocking road stats, it all stems from education. Until their laissez - faire attitude changes these stats won't. 

[thedemon]

25 minutes ago, simtemple said:

Don't worry, be happy. Life is cheap, down here in the land of smiling low IQ idiots. 

Highest in road fatalities. Highest in child swimming fatalities. Highest in every criterion that demonstrates a total lack of humanity. Scum of the earth. 

 

It's time for you to go somewhere else.

[DrTuner]

2 hours ago, RotBenz8888 said:

Thais just can't see dangers and anticipate what might happen. 

Forward planning and capability for estimation/prediction is a mortal sin in Thainess. The result is pissup & brewery-style chaos.

[dcnx]

Last summer I taught all but one Thai kid who lives in my condo to swim. One “hi-so” family is a straight up farang hater and wouldn’t allow their brat to be taught. The wife is always bad mouthing other foreigners in the condo and causing problems for everyone and now her son is the only one who can’t swim. All the other kids play in the pool daily now. 

[gunderhill]

teach  em  to  ride  motorbikes  thatll   sort  it

[ChipButty]

Even back in the 50's the school used to take us to the baths once a week to learn to swim you would think here in Phuket the amount of pools it shouldn't be a problem.

[ChipButty]

2 minutes ago, gunderhill said:

teach  em  to  ride  motorbikes  thatll   sort  it

They already know just their feet cant touch the ground 

[Srikcir]

3 hours ago, webfact said:

the death rate in the kingdom of children up to 15 is TWICE that of the world average.

It would be nice to cite sources for statistical data.

Dr Suwanchai Wattanayingcharoenchai did warn about children drowning deaths in 2016 as spokesman for the Ministry of Public Health.

I found this from the 2004 World Report on Child Injury Prevention. Other later reports had no data for Southeast Asia). https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK310648/

For Thailand looks like 6.0-9.9 for 2004 and less than Cambodia and Vietnam at 10.0+ with the average for South-East Asia at 6.2

On observation the world average (excluding nations with no data) might be about 7.5 that would be somewhat higher than South-East Asia.

So if Thailand's drowning death rate for children is now 15.0, it would be about twice the world average (all else being equal).

It appears that the Ministry of Public Health in 2016 didn't react appropriately - maybe now if the NLA holds the government accountable for policy failures.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[jkcjag]

1 hour ago, bowerboy said:

 

At least 3 that I know about personally in the last 12 months in the area that we live in.

...but are the number of pools in your area representative of the nation...pools are very rare outside of expat zones I think

[sammieuk1]

They provide a 6ft deep unfenced drainage ditch around both small play areas in my moo ban for swimming lessons the hard way????

[ChipButty]

4 minutes ago, sammieuk1 said:

They provide a 6ft deep unfenced drainage ditch around both small play areas in my moo ban for swimming lessons the hard way????

Stink or swim?

[Artisi]

2 hours ago, BritManToo said:

I thought most died in the sea, rivers and lakes.

Are you suggesting they fence those off?

 

How many Thai kids died in swimming pools?

A very small percentage I would say - rivers, lakes, ocean in that order. 

 

[ChipButty]

Chinese are as bad or is it an Asian thing in general not being able to swim