U.S. hospitals are reporting a spike in child abuse during a recession that has driven some families to the brink and overwhelmed cash-strapped child-protection agencies, Reuters reported.
Allison Scobie, program director of the Child Protection Team at Boston’s Children’s Hospital, said in the last three months they had twice as many severe inflicted injury cases as they did in the three months the previous year.
She said her hospital typically handles about 1,500 such cases a year, but last year it rose to 1,800, adding that they have found the rise is directly attributable to what is happening economically.
“Many of the hospitals around here report an increase of 20 to 30 percent of requests for consultation regarding suspected child maltreatment,” she said.
One case involved a 9-year-old diabetic boy who was hospitalized after his single mother could no longer afford the insurance co-payments needed to treat his disease. The boy was left at home alone for long stretches on days when he required medical attention.
Similar anecdotal and official reports have surfaced in other regions as well. The Illinois department of child and family services reported a 5.8 percent rise in child abuse cases in the state in 2008 and child abuse cases rose more than 9 percent last year in the Chicago area.
The Public Children Services Association of Ohio, a nonprofit association of agencies charged with child protection, said child abuse cases in Ohio, a state hit hard by the recession, topped 100,000 for the first time in 2007 and are still rising.
The group’s director, Crystal Ward Allen, whose agency relies heavily on local revenue drawn from property taxes that have collapsed in the recession, said many agency directors acknowledged that child abuse reports have risen.
“Our basic safety net is really faltering,” she added.
Child abuse declined in 2007 to a rate of 10.6 percent of America’s total 71 million children, from 12.1 percent in 2006, according to recent federal data.
However, a March poll by Mason-Dixon Polling and Research showed that 88 percent of 607 sheriffs, district attorneys and chiefs of police nationwide expect a rise in child maltreatment.
The projections were based heavily on similar rises in past recessions.
More children suffering from subdural bleeding caused by blows to the head from abuse have been noted at Seattle’s Children’s Hospital and the Harborview Medical Center. They treat about one such child a month in a typical year, but they admitted nearly three times as many (32 children) were admitted last year.
The same has been reported in Syracuse, New York, where a flurry of similar cases startled doctors late last year.
Dr. Ann Botash, who heads the Child Abuse Referral and Evaluation Program at State University of New York in Syracuse, a city of about 147,300 people, said she was shocked by the increase.
Doctors call many of the cases “shaken-baby syndrome,” which the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke says bear distinct signs: brain hemorrhaging, retinal hemorrhaging and damage to the spine, neck or ribs.
The institute said shaking makes the fragile brain bounce back and forth due to a baby’s relatively large head and weak neck. It can cause bruising, swelling and bleeding, which can lead to permanent, severe brain damage or death.
Dr. Alice Newton, medical director at Massachusetts General Hospital’s Child Protection Team, which treated 25 children for serious abuse this year, said they saw a huge influx of shaken-baby cases compared to the 16 cited for all of 2008.
She said she might see 12 to 14 children for serious inflicted head trauma within a typical year. However, she’s already seen nine this year and many are from families without the usual warning flags such as a prior history of child abuse or drug problems.
Suffolk County District Attorney Daniel Conley handles such cases in Boston. Conley’s spokesman, Jake Wark, said they have seen allegations of child abuse more than double in January to February from the same period last year.
While some offending parents are arrested and prosecuted, and their children put in the care of relatives or foster families, agencies are overwhelmed and under funded, making them not always able to keep pace with the rise.
Robert Sage, director at the Boston Medical Center’s Child Protection Team, which treated 500 children with injuries consistent with abuse last year, said they’re getting swamped with such cases. He said that rate rose 30 percent in the first two months of 2009.
“It’s pretty much everything. A lot of physical abuse. Some neglect,” he said.
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