Who should go to work tomorrow?

[NotSureICanDoIt]

Today was my first day at a new job - one I am very lucky to have. I probably wouldn’t find another one as good again. Not going in tomorrow will look very, very bad and potentially jeopardise my job.
DP is a GP and has a 30 patient clinic tomorrow.

DD3 is ill. Some sort of virus, fever, headache, sore throat, no appetite. There’s no way she’ll be well enough for nursery tomorrow.

DP thinks I should stay home with her and I think he should. Up until this point I’ve been a SAHM so things like this weren’t an issue. He has never ever had to cancel work before.

Who gets to go to work tomorrow?

Definately you should be the one going to work tomorrow. Are you going to show him this chat? you should.

If he's a locum ant they get another locum to cover him then? That £500 you will both miss out on will be worth it in the long run.

Good luck op and congratulations on the new job 💐

It’s very different not having childcare as the child is ill and can’t go to their normal setting versus not having childcare at all

You should go to work no question. I’ve been in this situation before with my husband. We shared the load and would try and figure out who was more easily covered in their work place. In our case it’s not a GP but a teacher and a lead engineer and both those jobs are an absolute nightmare to ‘cover’. The world will still turn if your husband can’t go in but in this trial period you need to be present.

Excellent news! And right too! He's medically trained, and it will be the first time he has had to tell work he can't do it. They managed then I guess?

No, the patients can be seen by someone else can't they. It happens all the time

Hope the 30 patients got seen.

I’m actually supporting her going to work. It’s the cries of how awful it is for her husband to have to take a day off that bothers me. A whole system should not rely on one person. There should be more staffing to cover sickness or parental leave so that things don’t fall apart. And maybe if more people stood up for their right to also prioritise family you wouldn’t be saying it would be a ‘career limiting move’. That really does not help women in particular. We are not just workers.

This is a really dismissive attitude. Workers rights are not ‘nice’. They are hard fought for and particular important for women who often end up doing the majority of childcare, whether they chose to or not. We need to push back against this belief that we cannot prioritise our wellbeing or family. Of course business does not want this as it costs more money.

I have repeatedly said OP was right to go to work and her DP should stay home.

I think you are arguing against a point I didn’t make, and it’s time to sleep, so good night.

I don't think it's about guts. Not for me, anyway. I'm currently putting off a hospital procedure because I don't have anyone to pick me up after. My nearest family is a good 4-hour drive away and she's SO busy. My parents are dead and my husband left me. No other family. Do I have friends? Sure I do! And guess what? If you rely on them too much for things like this, they won't be your friends anymore!

I'm looking into a private patient service that picks people up after procedures and takes them home. It's a day procedure with a sedative, but not full anesthesia. Why the hell I can't just be scheduled and stay there for the day until it's worn off and then get a taxi home, I have no fucking idea.

Very unlikely to have been seen.

That's awful.

He was already the locum. He will already have been covering a gap. Most areas, it takes at least a couple of days to get another locum in. There are no GPs in a practice twiddling their thumbs, they will have had their own booked clinics. Squeezing in extras gives less time per patient, and the current 10 min per patient is already often not enough, so that would be unsafe. If these were acute patients, they may have cancelled a different doctor's chronic patients to make space, but that will still have been patients cancelled.

You should go in as you’re on probation. He needs to father up and support you.

£500 vs your entire salary for the next five years if they terminate the contract for not being there on the second day?

Your DH should be reasonable and supportive of your brand new job and offer to stay home this time as part of a long term strategy.

I hate this unavoidable dilemma, for hard working parents of young children, especially if they are in nursery or reception classes.The stress it causes in a marriage and to health is really serious.

I hope your dc recovers and bounces back really quickly after tomorrow.
But there will be a next time, so this problem needs more discussion.
It shouldn’t be assumed it’s always you who has to risk your career.

It's a hard one, probationary periods last up to 6 months and if she is 3 she could be sick every other week given its coming into colder months. I think you need to organise a Nanny that can cover for situations like this in the future. Given your husband's wage, you can afford it. For tomorrow, he should stay home and you go to work but you should have made plans for this (both of you).

It's a sad world in which the solution that comes to mind for most people is to leave a poorly 3yo child with a random stranger or acquaintance, even if there existed such a person willing to look after a non-related vomiting child.

Have you done this? I have several friends I can call in for emergencies, but not a single person who I would ask to look after my children if they are sick. I can’t imagine a scenario where anyone would ask me to do this either. Why on earth would I spread germs like this? My husband and I are immigrants but even if all our parents lived on our street none of them would babysit a sick child - they’re in their 70s and don’t need Covid or a sickness bug either.

The 3 year old is likely to have a few rounds ahead as a new nursery start so it makes sense for the dad to take this round during the OP’s first week and then the OP can do the next after her training and onboarding. There’s no scenario where the GP never has to parent his own child so it might as well be now, he’ll be in the same situation in a month or two - the pace of GP work never slows. He isn’t responsible for the failures of the system but he is responsible for his family.

What plans exist for a vomiting child, that isn't the parents taking it in turns to have a day off? Seriously, what else do you suggest they could do?

Also could t he have done phone consultations from home? Our GP virtually never sees anyone in person. Surely he could have offered to do triage fir the practice that day instead.

1. Phone consultations are triage. Sometimes they are all that is needed, but if this guy had a number of patients already booked in face to face, they have probably already have been deemed to need that eg a swelling to be examined etc
2. He is a locum so they would have cancelled his day altogether and not paid him
3. he was at home with a vomiting three year old - what’s he going to do if she wails out for daddy when someone is describing their pain

ETA I’m not sure of the patient confidentiality issues of calling a patient from a personal phine or patient numbers leaving the GP surgery systems

@NotSureICanDoIt

Great work, OP! So glad you stuck by your guns and he saw sense! Small pain now for bigger gains later.

Congrats on the new job!!

This seems familiar 🤔

What a toxic wanker he is