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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

I don't think I am but I'm willing to be corrected

117 replies

QueenOfCats · 04/06/2013 15:14

If somebody knocked on your door at 9pm and said that someone was lying injured in the road a few houses down, would you say "sorry, I'm busy, call an ambulance" and close the door?

If you were a qualified doctor, would your answer be any different?

OP posts:

reggiebean · 05/06/2013 00:38

OP, sorry, shouldn't have assumed it was about you after re-reading your wording .

YANBU. It's astonishing that someone would do that, doctor or not. The least you could do is phone an ambulance yourself.

(Disclaimer: If this has been addressed, and finished in the last 4 pages, I apologise for not reading through. I'm stuck on a conference call at 12:37 am and am trying to distract myself in between speaking responsibilities!)

Montybojangles · 05/06/2013 08:16

As a nurse, married to a surgeon (sad I know) I am really and at the number of people who think there is no responsibility to assist if in your own home.

I would be pretty annoyed completely fucked off if some one knocked with a stubbed toe or chest infection, but wouldn't think twice to help if some one knocked as there had been an accident on our street, or a neighbour had a cardiac arrest. My OH would be the same. But then people have only knocked in a proper emergency. If there were some reason we couldn't help we would say sorry, but can't help due to x.

Don't get me wrong, whenever you see someone in distress/collapsed you get a massive sinking heart feeling and wish you were elsewhere, but you also know you can possibly help, and so you do. Because one day it might be someone you love collapsed and needing help.

candyandyoga · 05/06/2013 08:22

Report her. What a nasty woman!

thegreylady · 05/06/2013 08:28

There was a collision between two cars outside our GP surgery and I rushed in to get help.The receptionist wouldn't even tell a doctor though she did call an ambulance. We had called police and ambulance anyway but I was appalled that a doctor wouldn't come out.

MadeOfStarDust · 05/06/2013 08:32

maybe the op should just ask her why she didn't help.... maybe then she would know the reason and could judge her accordingly..

After 9pm I am a "zombie" having been up since 4am and would not even babysit a friends child - let alone go running out in the street leaving my own kids at home alone... where anything could happen... and I would be liable and responsible if it did...

whois · 05/06/2013 08:37

Shocked at the number of people out for blood here.

Many, many reasons why someone wouldn't want to get involved:
Previous bad experience when trying to help.
Drinking (just cos she is religious doesn't mean she doesn't drink privately!).
Tired and worried about making a mistake.
On the phone to someone who is giving her bad news.
Or maybe she just didn't want to help and thought a quickly arriving ambulance would be able to provide better care. Your beef should really be with the ambulance that took 4 calls to arrive...

...doctors are NOT legally obliged to help in the UK. The link posted above is to a New Zealand site. The laws on this are different in every country. The GMC guidance does say that doctors should assist when they feel able to do so but, as others have noted, there may have been very valid reasons why this doctor felt unable to help. At a guess, I'd say the most likely reason is that she has helped in a similar situation before and had a problem. Doctors absolutely can be sued and receive complaints to the GMC for good Samaritan acts. The fact that indemnity insurance will usually cover you is small consolation when a court case or GMC complaint can drag on for years and can prevent you working in the meantime. All those on this post saying "Shop her" are part of the very climate that makes doctors reluctant to help. If you can't even be in your own home without the fear that someone is report you for supposed malpractice then no wonder doctors are risk averse

whois · 05/06/2013 08:39

EspressoMonkey reattaching a hand is not a 'simple' operation. And why the fuck should a surgeon go in on his day off, without the required amount of rest, when he has most Lilly been drinking (at a dinner party!).

iliketea · 05/06/2013 08:41

The thing is montybojangles for alla we know that GP could have had half the neighbourhood knocking on her door to help for different ailments in the last few months, and be weary of it. Also, the OP seems to have only heard 2nd hand what the GP actually said that she was busy - who knows what she was doing.

You may be happy for people to knock on your door asking for help, I wouldn't be - it puts you in an awful position trying to justify your personal life / time off / maintaining boundaries that you are not on call to the whole neighbourhood.

I would always help in an emergency when I was out and about, but I would be a bit annoyed if my neighbours felt it was ok to knock on my door at night, and then bitched about me on a forum if I felt unable to help (for whatever reason - why I felt unable to assist is nobody's business). If anything, the complaint should be why the ambulance took so long (but maybe whoever called said someone had gone to find the GP who lived nearby, so the priority was decreased). I think we just don't know all the facts to make a proper judgement.

ShinyPenny · 05/06/2013 08:58

Maybe she had just had a big fat line of coke.
Maybe her DH was tied up in some complex and painful restraint as part of a sex game.
Maybe her husband was drunk and trashing the house.
Maybe she had D&V.
Maybe she'd just found out her mother had died that evening.
Maybe it was the doctor's evil twin.
Who knows!

Montybojangles · 05/06/2013 09:26

iliketea it's happened twice, in 20 years. Both times major emergencies, hardly an intrusion. It's friends and family that constantly drive us batshit calling for advice about all sorts of minor ailments.

Montybojangles · 05/06/2013 09:27

And there is a big difference between someone knocking on your door and asking you to look at thier bunion and knocking to ask you to assist a collapsed man in the street IMO.

renaldo · 05/06/2013 09:34

DH is a doctor, and would always assist at an emergency. It's the knocking on the door about headaches, depression and a sick hamster, just when he's spent a gruelling 12 hours at work and is enjoying a glass of wine, that really piss him off. And don't get me started on the calls form the hospital constantly when he is not on call, emotional blackmail about emergencies when the hospital is too tight to provide enough on call staff ...

Montybojangles · 05/06/2013 09:39

A sick hamster renaldo ? ha ha, and I thought some of our families queries were odd

renaldo · 05/06/2013 10:01

It was a neighbour who had never spoken to us before, and called in the next day (DH looked at it and said take it to a vet) to say how expensive the vet had been ...
The depressed neighbour was worse, DH kept telling Him to see his GP as DH is a specialised hospital doctor but he kept callin in in the evening for long chats. As I put the 3 small DC s to bed.

Montybojangles · 05/06/2013 10:19

Maybe they thought your OH could perform surgery free of charge on hamster?? Bizarre. :( for the depressed neighbour, very difficult situation.

renaldo · 05/06/2013 11:04

I will confess that they wanted to know if hamster was hibernating or dead. DH said probably hibernating, but not sure.
Hamster was , of course , dead
On the plus side, they never asked advice again!

Montybojangles · 05/06/2013 13:22

Oh boy renaldo, that has made my day. Can't wait to tell OH

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