Child Passenger Safety Program Distributes 1,000th Car Seat
from The Children's Hospital (TCH) News, November 2005
Left to right: Claudia Ochoa, Christina
Castillo and Julio Zavala, all medical
assistants in Children’s Child Health
Clinic, help fit a child for a car seat.
Motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of unintentional death for children. Each year, more than 100 patients arrive at The Children’s Hospital as the result of crashes; almost half of them were unrestrained when the crash occurred.
To help keep kids safe, the Kiwanis Pediatric Trauma Institute (KPTI) launched the Please Be Seated car-seat education and distribution program in 2001. Earlier this year, the program marked a milestone of providing 1,000 car seats and safety restraints to patients. KPTI also offers car seats at cost to employees and car-seat inspections to patient families and staff by appointment.
A specially-trained team of about 100 hospital staff teaches families how to use car seats and provides them with information on child passenger safety laws and recommendations.
Car seats are provided at low cost to patients who are in need of one, and special-needs safety restraints are loaned in situations where a child might not be properly restrained in a conventional car seat. The hospital provides about 90 of these restraints for families each year.
“Sometimes when kids come to Children’s and are fitted in a cast, they won’t fit in their car seat going home,” said Jim Savage, KPTI’s child passenger safety coordinator.
Last year, KPTI received funding from Metropolitan Homes to offer car seats to low-income families who visit the Child Health Clinic. Patients of the clinic receive car seats for a $10 donation. The program has been a success – more than 80 patients so far have received car seats.
“The medical assistant staff have done an excellent job of identifying families who are in need of a car seat,” Savage said. “Because of their efforts, many of our patients leave the hospital safer than when they arrived.” Savage said he hopes to expand the program next year, creating a regional resource center that will provide assistance to families of children with special needs. “Many families have kids who need a little extra help to be safe passengers, but they don’t have a source for help, so these kids often are not as protected as they could be,” he said. “We hope to be able to give these families the resources and information they need.”
