The Principal and Staff of the Albena Lake-Hodge Comprehensive School called an urgent meeting of parents on Tuesday, June 3, to alert them about their concerns regarding a number of students who became strangely sick after allegedly “puffing some kind of product”.
The Principal, Mrs Ingrid Lake, told the parents at the Rodney MacArthur Rey Auditorium that about three weeks ago six students at Campus B became violently ill and unable to breathe properly. As a result they had to be rushed to the Princess Alexandra Hospital for treatment.
“I can’t tell you the symptoms, but they have been using some kind of product – it is a new product on the [local] market – e-cigarette, I think it is called,” Mrs Lake said. “They (the children) have been puffing and, as a result of the puffing, it has been affecting them. We don’t know if they all puff at school or are puffing at home, but all we know is that we have had to be calling the ambulance every minute to get children to the hospital because of the breathing issues that they were encountering. We deemed it necessary to call you to this meeting to share information with you, and put you on your Ps and Qs so that you can also question your children and monitor what they are doing at home.”
Mrs Lake said the school was facing a number of difficulties regarding the matter. One was that a lot of the affected children were girls; secondly, they were not telling the truth; and, thirdly, it was not known from where they were getting the product which reportedly costs US$15 – and from where they were getting the money. She was disappointed that children were using the product although they were warned about it by teachers. She guessed that some of the children might have become addicted to the product if they had been using it for some time.
Teacher Sarah Francis, Head of Year One at Campus B, explained that among the symptoms the children were experiencing were: fainting, severe headaches, kicking, screaming and flopping of hands, chest pains, gasping for air, sweating and feelings to vomit.
Mr Iain Bibby, a Drug Counsellor, who was able to secure one of the “electric cigarettes,” said that the product was around for some ten years, was available in different brands and was being particularly marketed to young people. He said that doctors would not recommend it as a smoking sensation device and that it was not regulated by the US Food and Drug Administration. After further comments, he concluded: “It is pretty worrying, to say the least.”
During his delivery, Mr Bibby read an extract from a document from Link for Parents –www.kidshealth.org. The printed page showed what e-cigarettes or E-Hookah’s look like. In part, the document described the product as follows:
“It is a battery-powered device that uses liquids to simulate smoking by producing various flavoured vapours that are inhaled. The liquids often contain nicotine but not always. They are tobacco free. One e-cigarette containing nicotine would be approximately the equivalent of six tobacco cigarettes. E-cigarettes have been around for about ten years. The product is marketed as a safe alternative to cigarettes, even as a medicine without the proper research and thorough testing that all new medicines are subject to.”
The meeting, called by the teachers, is thought to have been an eye-opener for parents to monitor their children – what they are engaged in. This parental action and responsibility by them may help not only to prevent a repeat of the situation, which occurred at Campus B, but other incidents affecting the health and wellbeing of their children at home or at school.
