Doctors at Cook Children’s Hospital say they believe the stresses from the coronavirus pandemic are linked to six cases of severe child abuse seen at the hospital just this week.
This is usually what Cook Children’s says it sees over the course of a month. All of the children admitted this week are under 4 years old.
“We knew an increase in abuse was going to occur, but this happened faster than we ever imagined,” said Christi Thornhill, director of the Trauma Program, the Care Team and Fostering Health at Cook Children’s. “I mean this happened in a week and these are really bad abuse cases.”