Should Swimming Pools Be Fenced Off To Prevent Accidental Drowning In Singapore - Essay Example

? Should Swimming Pools Be Fenced Off To Prevent Accidental Drowning In Singapore? Introduction Strictly defined as death from suffocation because of submersion in a liquid, which is often either fresh water or seawater, drowning is a significant accidental cause of deaths and neurological death among children. Presently, it is the 20th most common cause of death all around the world; yet it is preventable. Neurological damage occurs where the victim survives after a situation termed as near drowning. Mainly, drowning leads in hypoxia, which in turn cause haemodynamic effects that, predispose one to neurological morbidity where one survives; and this leaves one with problems in planning, attention, memory and learning. In Singapore, a study conducted in 2004 revealed that in a populace of 100,000 drowning occurrences among children differed from 0.88 to 1.72 during 1992-2001. On a gender basis, the male to female ratio rose from 2.7 to 11.3 in the same period indicating that more males were prone to accidental drowning in swimming pools compared to females (Vasanwala, 2004). Quite a number of drowning deaths in children in low and middle-income countries in Asia; occur at home or within the community where drowned children are not taken to health facilities. This has made collection of data on accidental drowning challenging, as it is difficult to collect data on mortalities that occur outside health facilities and hospitals. In addition, there is the fact that it becomes futile to take a drowned child to a health facility where societal factors such as fear of legal ramifications on persons reporting deaths resultant from drowning and financial implications have also played a role. Distance from health facilities along with lack of transportation has also made it difficult for families to report such deaths. These factors have been the cause of lack of attention to accidental drowning as a major health issue (Linnan et al, 2012). Fencing off swimming pools goes hand in hand with better architectural design that aims at reducing risk exposures at swimming pool areas. Singapore being a warm and humid area implies that swimming or play activities that involve water would be more preferable for children. Considering most of these happen during school breaks where supervision may prove difficult or overwhelming, fencing off swimming pools would be more effective. For the case of water bodies, it would be advisable to build swimming pools close to them to prevent children from having to go directly to the sea. These swimming pools would feature four-sided fencing where the fences would be at a maximum distance from the pool to restrict access effectively (Rivara& Thompson, 2010). Being considered a relatively wealthy urban area, Singapore was reported to have accidental drowning occurring among 15 to 24 year olds. Notably also, these deaths were a result of falling into open bodies of water where 45% of accidental drowning were reported to be at sea. Following a general principle of injury prevention, it has been noted that passive protection proved more effective than active protection where the latter is defined as an individual being constantly vigilant and ready to act. This has been evidenced by studies that have shown that legislation mandating self-locking, self-closing gates accompanying adequate fencing in domestic swimming pools would prevent most of the accidental drowning among children. Moreover, parents and guardians need to be informed on importance of adult supervision among this age group where day-care facilities should be established as parents and guardians are bound to be overwhelmed with other responsibilities (Barss et al, 1998). It is important to note that children are less perceptive concerning risky situations; therefore, restricting access would be more effective than supervision as lifeguards, parents or guardians may look away. Additionally, Singapore being a developed country and urban area it is bound to have a number of swimming pools and facilities. This implies that proper fencing, which is ensuring that four-sided fences are established, would be an effective measure towards preventing accidental drowning. Pool fences should have a dynamic and protected gate that separate the pool away from the house in residential and public areas. Isolation fencing, which includes setting a maximum distance between the pool and fence, was found to be more effective along with ensuring that the height of the fence is high enough making it difficult for children to climb over; this coupled with ornamental iron bars to prevent visibility and ability of children to climb over. This restricts access to swimming pools as unintended entry is prohibited and lifeguards are better able to supervise. In essence, this should go together with legalization where all pool areas both private and public would have to be fenced as per certain criterion. Furthermore, instituting enforcement provisions would ensure that the legal mandates are strictly adhered. Such enforcement provisions include imposing fines and undertaking periodic inspections (Rivara & Thompson, 2010). Recently, there was an incident of a 23-year-old man that almost drowned after going out to sea in a drunken state regardless of the warning flags. Prior to this incidence, two tourists drowned ignoring the same warning flags. This goes to show that having warning flags and lifeguards, who came to the rescue of the 23 year old man, is simply not enough (Whang & Ibrahim, 2013). There needs to be more restrictive measures, more importantly legally mandated so as to ensure such incidences do not happen. This implies that the fencing of swimming pools and establishing the same for large water bodies such as the sea would be an effective way of reducing such deaths. There have been arguments for swimming ability and training as measures of drowning prevention but these were refuted because of the fact that they would cause parents and/or supervisors to be less vigilant and children would be inclined to get into hazardous water environments; that is, high risk behaviors (Ma et al, 2010). In conclusion, fencing off would prove the most effective for prevention of deaths among children especially in domestic swimming pools. For example, pool fencing along with maintenance is seen to reduce drowning incidents in Brisbane, Australia after it became legally mandated (Fenner, 2000). However, this would require being accompanied with other measures such as aquatic safety education, swimming lessons and supervision. In Singapore, men are reported to have higher drowning rates compared to women and this has been attributed to alcohol where the former overestimate their abilities. Following this discovery, it would be imperative to ban alcohol, for instance past a certain time where supervision proves difficult, around swimming pools and other water bodies. Just as well, enforcement provisions should be emphasized to ensure compliance and continual practice of safety measures. References Vasanwala, F. (2004). Childhood Injury Prevention in Singapore- A Review. Cfps. Retrieved from http://www.cfps.org.sg/sfp/36/363/363_original_paper2.pdf Linnan, M. et al. (2012). Child Drowning: Evidence for a newly recognized cause of child mortality in low and middle income countries in Asia, Working Paper 2012-07, Special Series on Child Injury No. 2. Florence: UNICEF Office of Research. Rivara, F., Thompson, D. (2010). Pool fencing for preventing drowning of children. John Wiley& Sons. Retrieved from http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD001047/pdf/standard Barss, P., Smith, G., Baker, S., Mohan, D. (1998). Injury Prevention: An International Perspective Epidemiology, Surveillance and Policy. Oxford University Press: New York Whang, R., Ibrahim, N. (2013). Drowning Singaporean Saved from drowning in Phuket. The New Paper. Retrieved from http://www.tnp.sg/content/drunk-singaporean-saved-drowning-phuket Ma, W. et al. (2010). An analysis of risk factors of non-fatal drowning among children in rural areas of Guangdong Province, China: a case-control study. BMC Public Health, 10: 156. doi:10.1186/1471-2458-10-156 Fenner, P. (2000). Environmental Health: Drowning. Australian Family Physician. 29 (11): 1045-1049 Read More