Ioannina: “Dad I am in hospital, come” – Father’s description of the 15-year-old adventure after alcohol consumption

‘ Dad, I’m at the hospital, come on,” was the first words of the 15-year-old through the hospital, when he called his father on the phone to inform him of the bad situation he was after eating at a fun center in . The 15-year-old’s father, speaking at newssit.gr, describes the moment his phone rang at 6:50 a.m. and was informed by his own son that he had been taken by ambulance to the hospital in Ioannina. CORVERSE “He took the kid in an ambulance to the hospital and from there he called me at 6:50 in the morning and told me ‘Dad I’m in the hospital, come on.” He was conscious but did not remember what had happened, but he vomited. I took my jacket straight and got up to go to the hospital to see what had happened. He was very dehydrated and that’s why they have serum up to now. He had to stay for two days because as doctors said some symptoms may appear on critical 48 hours.” As reported in newssit.gr the father of the 15-year-old, these times are very difficult to raise children especially teenagers, because serving alcohol to minors is done everywhere and this holds many dangers for children as one of them is addiction to alcohol. “He asked me for New Year’s Eve to go out with his friends, I couldn’t tell him no. The bad news is that the shops are systematically serving alcohol to 15-year-olds. When a child can find alcohol so easily he can become dependent on it. Yesterday were two imports with two minors in Ioannina”. CORVERSE The 15-year-old who went out for fun on New Year’s Eve and consumed alcohol is still in hospital until doctors make sure he is well and allowed to be discharged. “The child is still in the hospital with obvious improvement of course but remains there for precautionary reasons. His tests are good now, so now they’ve taken out the condition because it’s now hydrated. The sure thing is that he won’t drink again – as he told us – because he was too scared,” the 15-year-old’s father points out in newsit.gr. At the same time, the risk bell rings the Panhellenic Federation of Workers in Public Hospitals (POEDEN) for the abuse of alcohol by teenagers in Greece. In addition to the 15-year-old in Ioannina, two other cases of teenagers have recently been recorded who had to be hospitalized at Kalamata Hospital and Hippokratio Thessaloniki after excessive intoxication. According to the president of the Workers’ Federation, Michael Giannako, these incidents are far from isolated: “In recent months there has been more than a doubling of the cases of children attending hospitals after drunkenness. The number of minors is constantly increasing. They come either after drunkenness, excessive use, or adulterated drinks in the emergency room of on-call pediatric hospitals and clinical general hospitals. The operating framework of shops serving alcohol to minors should be tightened and at the same time families should be more careful with their children. Because children’s drunkenness doesn’t always happen in entertainment centers. Children often gather in squares in large places and use alcohol,” he specifically says.