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HALLOWEEN CAN BE a busy night for A&E departments around the country. Fireworks, sparklers, bonfires, apple bobbing. Wait, apple bobbing? Yes, apple bobbing.
Our Lady’s Hospital for Sick Children is warning against the traditional Halloween game where children dunk their heads into a bucket of water full of apple and try to pull one out with their teeth.
According to Dr Kathyrn McCreer, eye surgeon at the hospital, injuries that can occur “as a result of the child attempting to bite the apple at force when dunking their head.”
She says that possible dangers include scratches on the surface of the eye as well as infections from dirty water and water communally used by a number of children.
The hospital says that although they “are not asking people to avoid fun on this family occasion”, apple bobbing is “best avoided”.
Eye injuries
McCreery says that she sees a variety of eye injuries happening to children at Halloween, most of which are completely avoidable:
The most common accidents I see include corneal abrasions and bleeding in the eye, caused by children being struck in the eye with sharp Halloween accessories such as swords, knives or wands and eye injuries as a result of poor supervision of fireworks and around bonfires.
“Parents need to make sure accessories such as swords and other objects are soft and flexible, and have dulled edges”, she adds.
Other eye injuries that eye doctors in A&E’s departments have to deal with on a busy Halloween night include cigarette burns to the cornea, foreign objects that get under the eye lids, bruising of the eyes and infections as a result of poor removal of children wearing make-up.
“Old make-up is a breeding ground for bacteria,” according to McCreery. Yikes!
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Anyone I’ve spoken to in an SME claims they are struggling to get loans out of banks. Primetime…investigate
i agree get primetime to investigate these muppets and bring the truth to the surface
So it’s the sme’s fault for not applying. Vague memories of my bank sending me preapproved loans without any request for a loan oh how the tables have turned
If you lay the terms, then you can determine the eligibility. The banks are blanking SME’s, they are just giving themselves a plausible cover story. SME’s represent 90% of Irish businesses, the banks couldn’t care less about them.
Thats just bowlix that, the banks are putting up stupid conditions on SME’s to meet the criteria and using any excuse not to give out money.
I thought that the money we used to bail out the banks was to help stimulate lending? Utter BS.
Absolute BS is right.
The CRO have become an unwitting mouthpiece for the banks.
I needed â
Why don’t I believe them?
I’d imagine a lot of small businesses know that it’s like trying to get blood from a stone and realise that it’s not worth the time or resources to apply for a loan they know they won’t get.
Small business owners everywhere must be livid over this crap.
i went in looking for a loan and was told their not a hope been with the bank 35 years never miss a payment
Its never the bank fault is it…..
Also the bank managers are telling customers not to ask for a loan because you will not get it, how many of these are counted in this report??
Out of interest…. what do you mean by ‘stupid and punitive requirements’?
the Credit Review Office charges €100 to review a case, if a small business is looking for a loan they dont have the money to be shelling out €100 for a over paid credit review officer to check th case. this is why alot of loans are not reported on.
have your say