Doctors’ concerns over child poverty

HEALTH: Poverty may be having a devastating impact on child health, as parents dilute milk, skimp on food and youngsters endure damp, cold housing.

A report from the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health and Child Poverty Action Group suggests half of paediatricians in the UK think the problem is getting worse.

POVERTY IS having a devastating impact on children’s health, with parents diluting milk, skimping on food and youngsters living in damp, cold housing, paediatricians say.

A new report from the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH) and Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG), based on a survey with 250 paediatricians across the UK, found almost half think problem is getting worse.

Just three doctors said the situation was improving for the children in their care.

Data shows that 4m children – or three in 10 – across the UK live in poverty after housing costs are taken into account. This is predicted to rise to 5m by the end of the decade.

In the new report, more than three in five doctors said food insecurity – including poor nutrition and inability to buy enough food – contributes “very much” to the ill health of children in their care. A further quarter said it contributes “somewhat”.

Doctors told how parents deprive themselves of food and rely on food banks, while others cannot afford clothes, toothbrushes or toothpaste.

One paediatrician said: “I see patients with poor nutritional state from poverty or low income, with growth below [what is] expected”, while another said: “Parents dilute down milk as they can’t afford formula milk.”

Another said: “We see parents in A&E who are limiting their eating to care for their children. Children are worried, scared and upset.”

More than two-thirds of doctors said homelessness or poor housing contribute “very much” or “somewhat” to the ill health of children they work with.

Just under a third said the inability to keep warm at home contributed “very much” to child ill-health and a third that it contributes somewhat”.

Others described mouldy, damp houses and families living in one room.

One doctor said: “Cold, damp, overcrowded housing exacerbate respiratory illness and other conditions”, while another said: “[I see] children being unwell with back-to-back respiratory illnesses, living in overcrowded shared accommodation.”

Another said: “It is not unusual to hear about extended families of five to seven people, maybe more, living in one-bedroom apartments, or single mothers with two or three children living in bedsits with a shared kitchen and bathroom.

Another said: “[I] recently saw a child who was living in a mouse infested house – the mum and baby plus four other kids were living upstairs as the mice had totally destroyed their living room.”

Paediatricians also pointed to the impact on a child’s mental health, with “worry, stress and anxiety” meaning children have a “little part of their childhood taken away, a part of their day they will spend worrying instead of playing or learning”.

One doctor said rates of selfharm in young people had gone up due to the “combination of the recession and continuing austerity measures”.