The four-year-old son of Mississauga mother Nazli Yilmaz is seen after the attack, with blood on his shoes and pants. Photo courtesy of Nazli Yilmaz
A Mississauga mother is looking for answers after her four-year-old son was stabbed with scissors in a daycare.
Nazli Yilmaz said her son sustained a “deep wound” near his eye requiring stitches after another child allegedly attacked her son while he was at a PLASP after-school care program at Cooksville Creek Public School in Mississauga on Oct. 5.
Yilmaz said that despite the severity of her son’s injury, emergency medical services were never contacted.
“Staff cleaned him up, changed his bloodied clothing, and waited for me to arrive,” she said.
She doesn’t blame the child, who is reportedly non-verbal and has special needs, but instead has concerns about how PLASP handled the incident.
“I’m not going to hold a child accountable,” Yilmaz told INSAUGA Canada. “It’s the adults. You guys are put there for a reason, you’re paid to be there for a reason, and it’s just complete negligence.”
At the same time, she recognizes educators are often underpaid and overworked.
“We can make mistakes,” she said.
But she said there was a lack of information about what happened, why paramedics weren’t called, what type of scissors were used to cause such a deep wound, and how another child was able to get those scissors. She said the answers weren’t forthcoming.
“It was just completely covering it all up, trying to sweep it under the rug, and just hope that nothing would come out of it,” she said.
PLASP declined to comment on the situation.
“At PLASP, the safety and well-being of children in our programs is a priority,” PLASP said in an email to INSAUGA Canada. “If incidences occur in our programs, we work directly with families to resolve situations and respond to any concerns and questions they may have. In adherence to our privacy policy, we do not share information on our families.”
Yilmaz said she first heard her child was injured at approximately 5:16 p.m. on Oct. 5, while she was already on her way to pick her son up.
A PLASP staff member called her and said there had been an incident involving another child, and that her son had sustained an injury near his eye, and that she needed to come immediately and take him to a doctor. She said she panicked as she was travelling in rush-hour traffic. She contacted her sisters to see if one of them could get there sooner.
When she arrived, she found her son crying with gauze wrapped around his head.
“He appeared terrified, distressed and in pain,” she said.
The wound was just above his eye. Photo courtesy of Nazli Yilmaz
Yilmaz said she rushed him to the emergency department of the hospital where he received four stitches.
Later, her son told her that the child came at him with the scissors and the daycare workers tried to hold the child back. He described the scissors as “large metal scissors similar to those used by teachers.”
A doctor told her that child-safe scissors wouldn’t have produced the type of injury her son sustained, she said.
The injury required stitches. Photo courtesy of Nazli Yilmaz
But she said there were delays in getting a report and, although she asked, she never saw the scissors used.
“It’s just that it was all handled terribly,” she said. “They didn’t tell me how or what happened. His t-shirt was bloodied, but when I got there, he was wearing a brand new t-shirt.”
She finally got a report from PLASP on Oct. 13, and they are now investigating, she said. The Ministry of Education, which oversees daycares in Ontario, is also investigating, she said. The Ministry did not reply to a request for comment from INSAUGA Canada.
Yilmaz said she is looking into legal action.
Her son is healing physically from the injury, but he doesn’t want to go back to school, she said. He feels unsafe there.
“School is supposed to be a safe place for kids,” she said.
As a single parent, Yilmaz said she is fortunate her parents can help out at this time. She is currently trying to move her son to a different school.
In the end, Yilmaz said she wants accountability from the people charged with children’s care and safety.
“They should be held accountable because they’re still there, monitoring other people’s children,” she said. “I am not just advocating for my son; I’m trying to advocate for every child there.”
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