Falling from heights-unnatural cause of death amongst children

Hong Kong is a small, highly urbanized and densely populated place.  The Pilot Project on Child Fatality Review- First Report (January 2010) indicated that in year 2006, 46 out of 109 child death cases died of non-natural causes.  Falls from height are one of the commonest causes of childhood injury and deaths in children under 5 years of age .

In the highly cramped and overcrowded home environment of Hong Kong, double-decker bunk beds act as essential space savers and are often used as work/play areas for children.  Falling off from beds especially from double-decked/ bunk beds is one of the common causes of head injury.  Many of the falls involved infants sleeping in beds without guards.

Many children are left unattended at home due to the increasing number of working parents and they are at high risk of various physical injuries at home. In a most serious incident a 14-month-old girl died after falling from the seventh floor (21-meter high) of a Yau Ma Tei apartment building. The mother was arrested and detained by police on the basis of charge of child neglect. (The Standard: 14th. Oct. 2009).

The government has launched different projects through the Social Welfare Department and non-Government organizations to provide child-care services to needy families and parents, who cannot provide adequate care for their young children due to employment or other social reasons such as chronic illness, caring for elderly at home.  In addition to the child care centers, the government has also started some different flexible forms of child care services to meet the different working hours and needs of parents:

Kindergarten-cum-child care centre

Extended Hours service

Day Foster Care

Day Small Group Home

There are 230 occasional childcare units in Hong Kong, each providing relatively inexpensive temporary childcare services at a cost of HK$32 for each half-day session.

For enquiries and detailed information of the location of the services, you can contact the Social Welfare Department Hotline 23242255. 

For language support, please call our Telephone Interpretation Service (TELIS) hotline. (See page 23 for the hotline number).