More than 60,000 children each year – about 165 each day – are treated in emergency departments for accidental medication poisoning.
To help combat the problems, Safe Kids East Central, led by the Georgia Health Sciences Children’s Medical Center, will join the U.S. Department of Justice Drug Enforcement Administration, in holding a prescription Drug Take-Back Day from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 29, in the Kohl’s parking lot in Evans.
“Medication accidents in children are preventable,” said Safe Kids Coordinator Rene Hopkins. “One vital way to stop them is to keep medicine away from children. This event gives parents and caregivers a place to safely dispose of unneeded, unused and expired prescription drugs.”
The event, coordinated by the DEA, will help keep the drugs out of reach of people who shouldn’t have them and out of the water supply, which happens when drugs are dumped down the toilet or sink. Four national take-back days have already removed more than 774 tons of medication from circulation, according to the DEA.
Safe Kids East Central is one of nearly 600 coalitions and chapters in the U.S. that work closely with law enforcement officers, firefighters, paramedics, health professionals, educators, businesses, public policymakers, and, most importantly, parents and children, to implement injury prevention programs. Since 1987, Safe Kids has contributed to a 51 percent reduction in the U.S. child fatality rate from unintentional injury.
“This is one more way to protect the children in our community,” said Hopkins.
For more information, call Hopkins at 706-721-7606 or visit www.georgiahealth.org/safekids.