Medicine Cabinets provide a safe and convenient storage place for all your medical essentials such as your first aid kit, headache tablets, creams and ointments. But homeowners need to take great caution when it comes to the safe and secure storage of prescribed medicines. Prescribed medicines can be extremely potent and are potentially lethal when they fall into the wrong hands. Particular care needs to be taken when there are small children around, who may think the tablets look like ‘sweets’, and have no idea of how dangerous they could be.
If you feel that there is potential for your medicines to get into the wrong hands, we would recommend storing them in a locked security safe. That way you have full control over who has access to your medicines and there is a much lower chance of young children inadvertently swallowing what could potentially be a lethal drug.
The Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RSPA) provide guidelines to help reduce the chance of children becoming poisened:
- Keep medicines and chemicals out of sight and reach of children, preferably in a locked cupboard
- Wherever possible, buy products in child resistant containers
- Always store chemicals in their original containers
- Dispose of unwanted medicines and chemicals safely
More than 28,000 children receive treatment for poisoning, or suspected poisoning accidents every year – isn’t it worth sparing a thought and taking steps to reduce this statistic!