Sixteen children have ended up in the paediatric ward of the Kumanovo General Hospital this year with poisoning. Most often they are children between two and four years old, who drank a medicine, a detergent or a cleaning product.

In the last month alone, six cases were registered in the Kumanovo area. The most recent - a nine-month-old baby from a village near Lipkovo, brought in on suspicion of having swallowed detergent. That one ended well; the child was in good condition and no dangerous substance was found to have been ingested.

Six cases in thirty days, in a single municipality. That is no longer a run of bad luck.

What children reach for most

The head of the paediatric ward, Dr Margica Arsovska, ranks the list by frequency: medicines first - antibiotics, sedatives, heart medication, diabetes medication. Then household products and cleaning agents. Pesticides. And children eating plants.

"Children explore, they want to get to know their surroundings, but sometimes that also means they will try something that can be dangerous," Arsovska says.

In the more serious cases the child can lose consciousness. Certain chemicals cause severe damage to the oesophagus and the stomach.

The mistake adults make, not children

One detail from the paediatricians' advice is worth reading twice: do not pour chemicals into different packaging.

"If, for example, a thinner or paint is poured into another bottle, the child may think it is juice and drink it. We have had such cases too," Arsovska explains.

That is the moment it becomes clear this is not a story about careless children. A two-year-old does not read labels. What they see is a juice bottle, on the table, at the height of their hand. The decision that puts the child in hospital was made by somebody else, a few days earlier, when it was easier to pour thinner into an empty bottle than to keep it in the original one.

If it happens

The two pieces of advice doctors repeat are concrete and easy to remember. First: bring the packaging with you to the doctor - the bottle, the box, the tablet. They need to know which medicine was swallowed, the approximate dose, how much is left and how much time has passed. That directly affects the treatment.

Second: do not induce vomiting on your own. With chemicals and detergents, especially corrosive ones, that damages the body further. The first two hours are decisive - but in hospital, not at home.

Health education for parents, as Arsovska puts it, is key to bringing the number down. But the pattern these cases reveal changes faster with one locked cupboard than with any campaign.