Associations warn about the deaths of children in swimming pools and regret the inaction of the state

The Child Safety Association and others warned Thursday of an increase in child deaths due to drowning, lamenting government inertia regarding the legal framework for private swimming pools, tourist complexes and condominiums.

In a joint statement, the Association for Child Safety (APSI), the Portuguese Association of Swimming Pool Professionals (APP) and the Portuguese Association for Consumer Protection (Deco) remind that swimming pools are still the place where the majority of incidents occur. child mortality from drowning, which has increased in recent years.

“The state remains complicit in the tragedy that has haunted our country for decades, and only in this year, 2024, has its inertia ended,” the associations say, recalling that over the past 12 years, an average of 10 children have died per year due to drowning and 21 were hospitalized.

According to the organizations, at least eight drowning children will be recorded in 2023; it is known that three died in swimming pools and two were hospitalized.

A year after a legislative proposal by APP, APSI and Deco was presented to government and other political forces to create a regulatory regime for the safety and sustainability of swimming pools in tourist resorts, condominiums and private premises, “nothing has been done”. We are sorry to the organizations that returned this Thursday to send the proposal to the political agents.

“With each passing day that those in charge do not take action to create an adequate regulatory framework for the majority of swimming pools, they become complicit not only in these accidents, but also in the increasing frequency of sanitary and epidemiological events adverse to health,” they write. .

To these problems, the organizations add a “deteriorating ecological footprint,” pointing to the lack of mandatory sustainable solutions to combat water and energy losses generated in basins.