- Doctors in casualty departments are seeing rising numbers
of children with self-harm injuries.
-
- A BBC survey of A&E staff found that two-thirds
believed
that cases were increasing, particularly around times of stress, such as
examinations.
-
- On average, staff said that they were seeing 10 cases
a month - although one reported three a day during the exam period.
-
- Most thought that the average age of self-harmers was
falling.
-
- One case recounted by staff involved a six-year-old boy
who tried to hang himself after family problems.
-
- Many A&E doctors said that while they could treat
physical injuries caused by self-harm, a lack of trained child
psychiatrists
was hampering follow-up care.
-
- Adolescents, in particular, they said, were a neglected
group - too old for child wards, yet too young to be placed on adult
wards.
-
- One consultant told the BBC: "Adolescent psychiatry
is a fledgling discipline - and there simply aren't enough of them to go
around."
-
- Angry feelings
-
- The BBC spoke to one teenager, Sam Hunt, who has now
managed to stop harming herself after a problem which lasted years.
-
- She said: "There were lots of reasons why I did
it - the main one was that I was really bullied at school.
-
- "I was called really fat and it escalated into a
huge problem"
-
- "I was very angry with myself - you can either diet
or cut yourself as a way of punishing yourself."
-
- She used to cut herself with a razor blade hidden in
a box under her bed - and cut herself sometimes on a daily basis.
-
- When Sam's father Alan discovered she was self-harming,
he tried to stop her by searching her bedroom, but could not find all her
razors.
-
- He said that doctors told him it was simply a phase:
"The attitude was that it would go away.
-
- "However, in the end, it was Sam who made it go
away more than anyone else. She's done very well."
-
- She has not harmed herself for three months, and is
undergoing
counselling and using writing as an outlet for the emotions which
previously
drove her to self-harm.
-
- However, she still bears dozens of scars left over the
razor cuts.
-
- "They are not as bad as people think they are -
they are fading. People don't even notice them any more."
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- © BBC MMIII
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- http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/3188993.stm
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