Sucipe’s director, Dr. Carlos Kierszenbaum, made that statement on Thursday, on the International Day for the Fight against Child Abuse. The specialist has been treating cases requiring surgery at the Pereira Rossell Children’s Hospital in this capital for more than 20 years.

There he has noted the increasingly recurrent arrival of children under 15 years of age with gunshot wounds.

According to Dr. Kierszenbaum, the situation “went from being an almost anecdotal phenomenon in the surgical life of a pediatric surgeon to something frequent,” and it also occurs in other hospitals.

This has led to training medical for such contingencies and to the preparation of the academic work “Firearm injuries. An emerging issue that pediatricians should be familiar with.”

The study is based on the fact that Uruguay is among the top ten countries in the world with the highest number of firearms per 100 inhabitants.

Data recently collected by the Pediatric Emergency Department of the Pereira Rossell Hospital show an average of “one consultation every 27 days” for minors injured by firearms, “a major cause of mortality,” according to the research.

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