The provider’s chief executive and regional manager flew to Christchurch on Friday night.
The company said the chemical involved was used in many of its centres.
It was normally kept in a kitchen cupboard or laundry, and plumbed directly into the centre’s steriliser.
Kindercare now wanted answers on how the chemical was taken from that storage area and used in a play activity.
“The teachers have had a waterslide – bit of fun for the kids… and at some point of time, some detergent’s unfortunately been misidentified, and a corrosive product has ended up on the slip and slide,” Fire and Emergency Woolston senior station officer John Herriot said on Friday.
“This has caused some irritation to the children’s skin and some light blistering.”
In total, 40 patients were assessed after the incident, and five children and two employees were taken to hospital, while the centre was put into lockdown.
“Eighteen units responded, nine ambulances, three rapid response units, five operations managers and one Major Incident Support Team vehicle,” St John said.
St John national operations manager Chris Harrison said the patients had suffered chemical burns and blisters.
Parents were “pretty upset but pragmatic about the situation”, Harrison said.
‘Someone’s obviously dropped the ball’
Kindercare has promised to carry out a full investigation and WorkSafe has also opened an investigation.
Meanwhile, a safety expert said the internal investigation must be systemic.
New Zealand Institute of Safety Management president Karl Berendt told RNZ the cleaning product used was fairly common.
“It does have a caustic nature to it, and one of the things you’ve got to look at there is are we making sure all our systems and processes are right, in place and working as they should do?
“Look, in this particular case, someone’s obviously dropped the ball, and we’ve got to try and and figure out what’s gone on there.”
Berendt said the fact children were injured was a prompt for the entire childcare industry to go over the safety systems they had in place.
“We really need to make sure all our kindergarten and childcare centres take a good hard look at some of the things they’ve got inside their work spaces as well.
“Nothing’s more important than looking after our kids, so this is a good wake-up call for all these centres.”
– RNZ
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