At least 60 children from seven schools in Lamia were affected by school lunches. The symptoms are the same for everyone – severe abdominal pain, vomiting, loose stools. More than 30 lawsuits were filed by parents of poisoned children:
“It is impossible to send healthy children to school and have them come back poisoned. The child was crying and his stomach hurt.”
According to Christos Papantonis, a member of the parent and guardian association of the city's Primary 7 School, dozens of lawsuits have been filed in connection with food poisoning:
“We went to the prosecutor's office and then to the police. The number of claims exceeded 30. At noon, a parent texted us to see if we were okay after eating, and that's how we realized what was happening. Now things are a little better with the children. It is impossible to send our children to school healthy and have them return poisoned.”
The mother of a three-year-old child who showed symptoms of food poisoning says: quotes newsbeast.gr: “They were poisoned by school lunch. My son brought it home at noon, we opened it so he could eat, and at that time my daughter returned from kindergarten. She likes spaghetti with minced meat, so my son did not eat it, but gave it to his three-year-old sister. Then she cried, her stomach hurt a lot.” She notes:
“We are in the same group, all parents from Lamia Primary School 7, via Viber from the Association of Parents and Guardians, so we are in the know. I see that there are many messages posted in the group with the same symptoms in children from other parents. Then I realized, that this is not just an accidental gastroenteritis, this is poisoning. I constantly had complaints about the food, it always smelled a little strange, especially the fish, we can’t open and smell the food all the time to check if it tastes good. It seems like they were. The food is falling apart in the bag because it is not sealed. Just give the responsibility to those in charge, because they work with children. In two years, in three years, this company will continue to feed our children. people neglect the health of our children.”
The President of the Parents' Association of the 7th Primary School of Lamia, Maria Zografou, says that the company has never apologized for what happened:
“We were informed yesterday (Thursday) about these cases. It all started with a phone call in the evening, I also informed the manager about it. It was an isolated incident until the early evening. We, as an association, have created a Viber group where parents talk about problems. Messages began to arrive there one after another that the child was also vomiting and having diarrhea after eating. My own child does too. I was informed that there were cases in three more schools, with ours already four. Today there are 7 schools here. The number of cases is around 63, but the number could be higher as teachers take away leftover school lunches to avoid throwing them away. Around four, the child and the teacher, I think, went to the hospital with pain.”
She reports that parents filed lawsuits en masse on Friday:
“We filed a complaint from the association, today (Friday) we went to the prosecutor’s office, where she ordered the police to conduct an investigation. We started filing lawsuits, including from parents. Some time ago we were already informed that they spoke with the specified company, where they said that this was a random event, and that most likely the children had gastroenteritis. Is it possible for 63 children to have gastroenteritis at the same time? From 7 different schools that ate the same food? This is not a random event at all. They didn't even apologize. We, as an association, have heard many complaints about school meals, and have drawn our own conclusions. What pisses us off is that these are school lunches. This is upsetting. “We also found unopened packages that had not been opened and handed them over to the police so they could be sent to a laboratory for analysis.”
More Stories
Crete: Farmer suffers multiple gunshot wounds, part of his tongue is cut off
Lightning kills 150 animals at livestock farm in Aetoloakarnania
For the first time in Swedish history, women have been prosecuted for gang rape