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ALMOST half the youngsters treated at Alder Hey hospital suffer from ailments caused by their parents’ smoking habits.

A top doctor today accused adults of ruining their children’s health and development by lighting up around them.

Ear, nose and throat specialist Alison Flynn said “irresponsible parents” were also stunting their children’s development in language and education.

Last year, she saw more than 1,000 children with conditions caused by passive smoking, such as asthma, glue ear, bronchitis, pneumonia and infections caused by weakened immune systems.

It meant more youngsters affected by second-hand smoke were treated at the West Derby hospital than ever before.

More than 550 operations alone were carried out to insert grommets for ear infections caused by secondary smoke.

Experts also warned that evidence found at least 90% of cot deaths happened in families where the mother smoked.

Mrs Flynn today said she and other hospital staff were fed up with “brazen” parents continuing to smoke on site, close to wards where critically-ill children are cared for.

She said: “Some of these parents have no shame and will just not take responsibility for the effect they have on their children’s health.

“In one case, I treated a child for more than a year for glue ear, an inflammation of the middle ear.

“It is an acute infection and I kept telling the patient’s father that his smoking was causing the problem.

“He did not stop smoking until he felt his own ears becoming bunged up. Within months of him stopping smoking, all his child’s health problems had cleared up.”

Mrs Flynn said some parents tried to protect their child by smoking outside, but did not realise they continued to breathe out carbon monoxide for hours after a cigarette, often directly over their children.

She added: “You would think parents’ awareness would get better and better. But it is getting worse here in Liverpool.

“Children are vulnerable because they are still developing and growing. They breathe at a quicker rate, meaning the damage caused by second-hand smoke is far greater than that in an adult.

“These parents are seriously affecting their child’s development.

“Children with glue ear or grommets withdraw into their own silent world, fall behind in class and do not reach their education milestones. We are at our wit’s end with the problems caused by smoking at Alder Hey.

“These children are vulnerable and it is time parents considered their children first.”

carolineinnes@liverpoolecho.co.uk