House of Commons CANADA Standing Committee on the Status of Women FEWO Ï NUMBER 018 Ï 3rd SESSION Ï 40th PARLIAMENT EVIDENCE Wednesday, May 12, 2010 Chair The Honourable Hedy Fry 1 Standing Committee on the Status of Women Wednesday, May 12, 2010 Ï (1530) Through a stakeholder network across Canada, we have partners [English] at the federal, provincial, territorial, and local levels. With industry, corporations, and community organizations, we are endeavouring to The Chair (Hon. Hedy Fry (Vancouver Centre, Lib.)): I'm achieve our vision: fewer injuries, healthier children, a safer Canada. going to call the meeting to order. Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), this committee is studying Safe Kids Canada is encouraged to see the Canadian government's maternal and child health. commitment to championing a major initiative to improve the health of women and children in the world's poorest regions. We On April 12, 2010, the Standing Committee on the Status of congratulate the government for striving to make a tangible Women unanimously adopted the following motion to study difference in maternal and child health by making this the top maternal and child health. The motion reads: priority in June. As well, we were pleased to see that the government That the Committee study maternal and child health following the government's is looking to mobilize governments, non-governmental organiza- announcement to make maternal and child health a priority at the G8 in June that tions, and private foundations alike. Canada would be hosting, as long as this is done before the end of May. We are doing four hearings, and you are our third set of hearings. In the recent Speech from the Throne, it was announced that: Today we have four sets of witnesses. I will begin with the video conference witness, Pamela Fuselli from Safe Kids Canada, and then To prevent accidents that harm our children and youth, our Government will also work in partnership with non-governmental organizations to launch a national I will move on to the others in order. strategy on childhood injury prevention. Let me tell you that each group has 10 minutes to present. I will give you a warning when you have two minutes left. You don't have Safe Kids Canada agrees with Canada's G8 agenda to focus on to take 10 minutes, by the way. Then we will have a question and human welfare: answer set of rounds. It is incumbent upon the leaders of the world’s most developed economies to I'm going to begin with Pamela Fuselli, executive director for Safe assist those in the most vulnerable positions. Kids Canada. Ms. Fuselli, your 10 minutes begins. In his statement laying out the G8 agenda focusing on human welfare, Prime Minister Harper pointed out that “an astonishing 9 Ms. Pamela Fuselli (Executive Director, Safe Kids Canada): million children die before their 5th birthday”. This number is too Thank you very much. high, and unacceptable. Equally so is the number of children's lives Good afternoon, and thank you for the invitation to speak to the lost to injuries around the world. As a national injury prevention House of Commons Standing Committee on the Status of Women. program, we understand the high value and strong effects that The focus on maternal and children's health is an important issue, prevention can have on the health and welfare of children. and the discussions about children's health would not be complete without the inclusion of preventable injuries, an indicator of health Also in his statement outlining Canada's G8 agenda, Prime and the leading cause of death for children in Canada and around the Minister Harper pointed out that the vast majority, as much as 80% world. of deaths during pregnancy, are easily preventable. Furthermore, the Prime Minister expressed that far too many lives and unexplored Let me first tell you a little bit about Safe Kids Canada, the futures have already been lost for want of relatively simple and national injury prevention program of the Hospital for Sick Children. inexpensive health care solutions. Our organization was founded in 1992 by Dr. David Wesson, a trauma surgeon at SickKids who saw the results of injuries and looked for a way to address the fact that they were largely Injuries are preventable. Prevention is a relatively simple and predictable and therefore preventable. Safe Kids Canada is a leader inexpensive solution to the loss of too many lives and the detrimental in Canada, acting as a knowledge broker, bridging research to inform effects that injuries can have on a child's quality of life, as well as the action through evidence-based strategies, information, and resources. lives of their families and communities. 2 FEWO-18 May 12, 2010 According to the 2008 World Health Organization and UNICEF's As a part of a global movement of Safe Kids countries around the World report on child injury prevention, 60% of all child deaths were world, Safe Kids Canada supports the conclusion of the WHO and the result of road traffic collisions, drowning, fire-related burns, falls, UNICEF report, which states: and poisoning. Other unintentional deaths accounted for 30%, including smothering, asphyxiation, choking, etc. In comparison, Evidence demonstrates the dramatic successes in child injury prevention in war accounted for 2.4% of deaths, and homicide for 5.7%. This is countries which have made a concerted effort. These results make a case for not unlike the picture we see in Canada. increasing investments in human resources and institutional capacities. This would permit the development, implementation and evaluation of programmes to Injuries are the leading cause of death and disability in the world, stem the tide of child injury and enhance the health and well-being of children and responsible for more than five million deaths each year. Approxi- their families the world over. Implementing proven interventions could save more than a thousand children’s lives a day. mately 830,000 children under 18 years of age die every year as a result of an unintentional injury. More than 95% of all injury deaths in children around the world occur in low-income and middle- We think it's indisputable that injuries need to be a part of the income countries, although child injuries remain a problem in high- overall child health strategy, both in Canada and worldwide. income countries, accounting for 40% of all child deaths. Currently Canada has the opportunity to be a leader in maternal It's essential that injuries are seen as an indicator of overall child and children's health by adopting certain strategies. In the area of health, as the WHO and UNICEF report points out: injury prevention, this can begin by instituting the national injury prevention strategy, as outlined in the Speech from the Throne, and ...preventing child injury is closely connected to other issues related to children’s health. Tackling child injury must be a central part of all initiatives to improve the by adopting consumer products safety legislation that will allow situation of child mortality and morbidity and the general well-being of children. mothers to know that the toys their children play with are safe. So how does Canada compare to the rest of the world? Canada ranks 18th out of 26 OECD nations for deaths from unintentional Thank you for allowing me to speak with you today about the injuries. Had we enjoyed the rate achieved by Sweden, 2,665 more importance of injury prevention related to maternal and child health. children would be alive today. Many experts believe that 90% of childhood injuries are preventable and that there are best-practice strategies, such as the use of bike helmets and car seats, that could be Ï (1540) implemented immediately and make an impact on children's lives. The annual burden that injury places on Canadians overall, our The Chair: Thank you very much, Ms. Fuselli. health care system and Canadian society, looks like this: over 13,000 deaths, 300 of which are children under the age of 14; over 211,000 Canadians who are hospitalized, 21,000 of them being children Now we'll go to Anne Snowdon, researcher, AUTO21. under 14; over three million emergency room visits; and over 67,000 Canadians permanently disabled. Dr. Anne Snowdon (Researcher, AUTO21): Thank you so much for the opportunity to speak with you today. I represent AUTO21, We're looking at over $10 billion in health care costs and $19.8 Canada's network of centres of excellence team of researchers that billion in total economic costs, which is the same as the amount focus on the automotive sector. spent annually on pharmaceuticals across Canada. An estimated $4 billion is the economic burden of injury among children in Canada. So why are these injuries the leading causes of death in Canada for I am a nurse by training. I bring today to my comments children between one and 14 years of age? The vast majority of background as a pediatric critical care nurse. I spent a number of health care dollars are focused on treating disease, not prevention. years looking after critically ill children, 50% of whom are admitted to our ICUs—only very few of those actually survive—as a result of Ï (1535) severe road crashes. Given that preventable injuries are the leading cause of death to Canadian children, the amount of dollars spent are inverse to the I currently lead a national team of researchers that includes not scope of the problem. There's a misperception or misunderstanding only academia—members from computer science, business, en- that injuries are accidents that can neither be anticipated nor gineering, nursing and medicine—but also engages private sector prevented.