If you were a single parent with no one to help, what would happen if you had to stay in hospital?

[Sipitysip]

I was recently admitted to hospital for a week and whilst there several doctors/ nurses asked me who was looking after my dc. I told them dp was taking care of them but it got me thinking. What would happen if you actually had no one to take care of your dc and you had stay in hospital?

I think social services can step in and arrange temporary care.

They would most likely be placed in short term foster care

They would need to go into short term foster care.

It was my permanent dread. Fortunately, the worst that happened was all 3 of us got flu at the same time, which was just about manageable.

DH is military, and I was often on my own.

If a crisis admission, then the hospital social workers would have had to step in until grandparents arrived to take over (they were the only people who I could rely on to drop everything and help). They were several hours away, so depending on time of day it might have meant one night in foster care.

My mum could for one night but she's elderly so anymore than that and it would be social services, sadly. My friend had to have her kids go into temporary care when she went into early labour (she was in a Refuge a long way away and had no family). She was in hospital two weeks and astonishingly, she had to 'prove' her ability to parent them, in order to get them back.

short term foster care

Thanks everyone. I suppose that is the only option really if you have no one else.

In the short term social services is the only option but those who are single parents with no relatives often try to build a network of friends and neighbours for such eventualities - I had my neighbours kids for a few hours when they had to go to a&e in emergency, the grandparents were several hours away and drove back, in emergency situations people would help if they knew so often

Depends on the age. I’m not a single parent but DS will not sleep without me - the nurses said they had a blanket policy to let children under 5 stay for my treatment and that if I wanted to keep him overnight I’d have to keep him with me during the day too so they could register him for the nursery.

I was given a private room close to the pediatric ward and he had a flourescent bracelet that identified him as a ‘registered child’. He spent 9-2 with the nursery nurse there (she collected and dropped him off and fed him breakfast / lunch) and then I’d try to get him out and about. The nurses were kind and set up a little play area for him in our room and the local Asda allowed me to do a click and collect for his snacks to the Reception of the Pediatric Ward which I then collected.

But aware not many hospitals still do this.

I worried about this when I was heavily pregnant and DH kept working hours away. I kept wondering what I’d do with DS (2) if I went into labour! I didn’t in the end.

This is my situation. They would go into temporary foster care.