The series of ecological disasters that have recently haunted Ukraine was continued by an incident at a school in the village of Bedrikivtsi, Ternopil oblast. According to Interfax-Ukraine, six pupils have been hospitalized with neurological symptomatology and 28 have been sent to Berezhany to undergo treatment.
The illness of the children, who on September 4 were forced to discontinue their studies, was caused by mere pressed wood plates exhaling phenol. According to the Ministry of Emergencies, things built from the ill-fated poisonous plates have been dismantled. But are the other schools of the country, traditionally welcoming pupils with a strong smell of reconstruction, cosmetic and “European” repairs, safe from similar unpleasant surprises?
As The Day was told by the coordinator of the Green World Ecological-Humanitarian Association, located in Chortkiv, Ternopil oblast, Oleksandr Stepanenko, poisoning from phenol or formaldehyde inhalation is only one possible version. The experts of the district Sanitary Ecological Station assume that the cause for the chronic poisoning could be the chemicals used to protect plants in an area where villagers specialize in cultivating greenhouse tomatoes. In general, according to Mr. Stepanenko, in such cases it is very difficult to clear up the cause of poisoning. Was this ecological accident of regional scale really an accident? In the Green World coordinator’s opinion, it is more likely something to be expected for, as far as he knows, the sanitary service in fact does not conduct inspections of school interiors due to the scarcity of special equipment for monitoring the level of harmful substances, lack of transportation to sites to be inspected, and shortage of the necessary funds. Meanwhile, building materials and other substances with unacceptable health characteristics are used for repairs. There are too many plastics, adhesive materials, insulation, solvents, and paints, which cannot be called safe for children. Obviously, the health inspection units of the customs service, the mechanism of state certification, and oversight of the local sanitary ecological station should be at work here. The latter, in Stepanenko’s opinion, should explain to the supervisors of educational, medical, and children’s establishments as well as to ordinary consumers what materials are potentially dangerous to them. However, since these very establishments are financed according to the leftover principle, they have to take whatever they are offered. And the sanitary service itself, as he put it, does not always possess adequate information on the impact some toxic substances (in minimal dosages) have on the organism to make any qualified recommendations.
The condition of the children, according to Stepanenko, cannot currently be characterized as anything but difficult.
INCIDENTALLY
The chief pediatric toxicologist of Ukraine’s Ministry of Heath, the head of children’s toxicology department of the Okhmadyt Hospital Borys SHEIMAN, told The Day that no mass outbursts of toxic contamination have been registered, but individual cases of poisoning of children are common, especially with materials containing acetone. Poisoning with phenol or formaldehyde, he emphasized, can have serious consequences, but everything depends on the dosage of the toxins, their concentration and other factors. He declined to comment on the incident in the Ternopil oblast school, citing his own lack of documentation on the case.
