90 people died in preventable drownings – well above the 10-year average of 82<\/a>.<\/p>\nWater Safety chief executive Daniel Gerrard said a quarter of New Zealand children were not learning basic lifesaving water skills, such as floating on their back.<\/p>\n
He had been asking to meet with the ministers of sport, health, education, ACC and transport on the issue.<\/p>\n
“Regrettably, my attempts have been met with silence – an outcome that is both surprising and deeply concerning.”<\/p>\n
Getting water safety lessons into schools could help to lower the number of deaths by drowning, he said.<\/p>\n
“That’s getting into our schools and supporting teachers to deliver basic aquatic skills.<\/p>\n
“Now, that is not [teaching them how] to swim. This is [about] floating, moving through the water – really basic stuff that, supported properly, teachers can do.”<\/p>\n
Gerrard said deaths by drowning were a public health issue, but so far, the ministers had been absent.<\/p>\n
“We just need the opportunity to put this in front of the ministers.<\/p>\n
“This is not an expensive fix. There’s a lot that can be done, and is already going on.<\/p>\n
“We just need an opportunity to put it on their radar.”<\/p>\n
He said it would cost $100 for a child to receive 10 lessons in a year, which would dramatically reduce drowning deaths.<\/p>\n
rnz<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Water Safety New Zealand believes the government is turning a blind eye to drownings and is calling for more lessons in schools. Last year,\u00a090 people died in preventable drownings – well above the 10-year average of 82. Water Safety chief executive Daniel Gerrard said a quarter of New Zealand children were not learning basic lifesaving […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":9430,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[222,174],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9429","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest-news","category-nz-news"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9429","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9429"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9429\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9431,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9429\/revisions\/9431"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9430"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9429"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9429"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9429"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}