The YMCA has called for mandatory and government-subsidised swimming lessons for children after a horror holiday period for drownings in NSW.
New South Wales has now had 18 drowning deaths since Christmas Day, while a two-year-old boy remained in intensive care on Tuesday after being pulled from a fish pond at a Sydney home on Monday.
A two-year-old girl died on Sunday night after she was found unconscious in a backyard pool in Sydney’s south-west, while a body, believed to be 14-year-old Tui Gallaher, was found at Sydney’s Maroubra beach last week.
Writing in Fairfax Media on Wednesday, YMCA NSW chief executive officer, Leisa Hart, said the “unprecedented” number of holiday drownings should be a wake-up call to the federal government.
Hart said it is thought three out of five Australian children currently leave primary school without basic swimming skills.
She criticised the lack of mandatory swimming lessons and the absence of any “nationally recognised or mandated programs for children under four”.
“Just as we teach children to walk, talk, to learn their ABCs and basic maths, we need to educate them about water and its dangers, from backyard pool risks through to how to avoid rips in the ocean,” Hart wrote.
“This could begin as early as daycare, with accredited agencies being funded to provide children aged one to four with specialty education about water familiarisation and general water safety – including teaching toddlers how to ‘swim to the side to stay alive’.”
Hart called on the government to offer swimming lesson rebates to help reduce the financial burden, which can reach up to $300 per term.
She said lessons should then be made mandatory for primary school-aged children.
Water safety advocate and former Olympic swimming coach, Laurie Lawrence, said the Kids Alive campaign he had championed for children under the age of five had been successful.
“We’ve seen the under-five drownings go from 63 down to 21 last year, which is fantastic,” Lawrence told the ABC. “But the overall drownings seem to be going up and I don’t know if it’s older people, if it’s young men being more brave around water.”
Lawrence suggested children may be failing to continue swimming and water safety education once they have basic skills.
He said Tasmania now remained the only state in Australia to give free swimming lessons to children until they can swim 50m. “They’re really leading the way at the moment,” he said.
On Tuesday, NSW emergency services minister, David Elliott, called on swimmers to be responsible for their own safety and stay out of dangerous water.
Elliott said he was appalled at the amount of deaths during the holiday period.
“If you don’t know that your fence is childproof, fix it,” Elliott said. “If you don’t know that a river is going to be running a current underneath it, don’t go into it. If you don’t know that a surf is safe, don’t enter the surf. The appeal today is to make sure that you take responsibility for your own safety and the safety of your friends.”
