AIBU to have been upset over religion coming before medical reasons in hospital

[Mummytosurvivor25]

So in hospital with daughter , she has many heart n lung issues last week before we got moved to high dependant we were on general ward. Daughter has compromised lungs and a weak immune system but unless a patient has d&v you don't get isolated unless moved to high dependency.
Anyway on night 2 boys were admitted either side of daughter who had obvious wheezy coughs etc running around in to daughters cubicles I asked the nurse if we could move in to a cubicle and she said it wasn't possible.
A few hours later a girl aged about 12 came in who had a wheezy cough but again other than that fine but needed to reduce temperature anyway because of the temperature they asked of she could remove her head scarf
And they said no because no one could see her hair. So they gave her a cubicle ????

I'm. Not against any religion race WTc but surely health should come first anyway needless to say we ended up in high dependancy shortly after with a RSV something that my daughter can't fight off.
We were then discharged and she got rushed back in Saturday.

I agree with you OP

It's life threatening if your dd catches a bug

Head scarf aside you have no idea why she was in a single room.

We place people in single rooms because we know they are likely to be in for a long time, they have medical issues that require sensitive treatment, they have medical issues that may upset other people, they are likely to develop or already have a highly contagious disease, they are needing isolation and barrier nursing, or they need to go into a single room to keep the numbers correct and to stick with segregation of single sex areas.

What should have, in my opinion, happened with your daughter was treatment in a private cubicle from A&E up until a room was available in HDU - she obviously needed heavily specialised care that general wards won't be able to effectively provide unfortunately.

Curtains aren't that good by the way, they tend in my experience to offer visual privacy only - for full prevention of cross infection your daughter would have needed full barrier nursing (i.e nursing staff wear gloves, aprons, during all contact). I think anyway - I'm not pertaining to be an expert at all, I just work on a ward with patients who frequently present with infectious diseases or who are immune compromised as your daughter is.

I don't think it was a wise or fair use of hospital facilities. You should complain.

Yanbu, it exactly stuff like this that gets people's backs up.

You have my sympathy OP regarding not being able to get your DD in an isolation cubicle. My DD has multiple complex health needs and I have lost track over the years of how many times she has gone in through A&E having a prolonged seizure, transferred to a ward full of coughing children, been discharged only to be re-admitted days later with a chest infection.

She was once in a bay when they wheeled in a very sick boy whom they suspected of having meningitis. The put him next to DD. I was fuming, as was the mum of the child in the bed opposite. We confronted the doctor who obviously refused to discuss but as the Mother had come in to our bay crying her eyes out when they took her son off for a lumbar puncture, we knew exactly what they thought he had.

And anyone who thinks you can't possibly hear a full discussion on a ward has obviously never been in hospital. Curtains hide nothing from the ears. I have no doubt that OP will have heard every word of the discussion.

I hope your DD recovers soon OP and you get home/well enough for heart surgery. I have just spent 2 weeks on a respiratory ward with DD who had pneumonia. She is over 18 now so gets put on a ward full of mostly old people, some of whom have dementia - it is not fun.

Of course medical needs are the first priority.

But weren't they meeting her needs by ensuring they could treat her?

If the parents are saying no to a particular thing then how does a doctor treat the child? Get a court order to go against the parents wishes and take the scarf off? Or deal with the situation in the best way possible? In order to meet the medical needs of the patient, we must do X.

The alternative was to what? Give no treatment? Tear the scarf away?

I think your child has not had good medical treatment. I think she has been let down and more should have been done. In your shoes I would be raging about it and you should certainly be raising it.

But people don't get admitted to hospital unless they are really ill. Are you saying that you knew, heard and understood these children's complete medical history and you knew that they had no underlying health problems that meant that 'just' a wheeze, 'just' a cough or 'just' a chest infection had the potential to be dangerous for them? They were perfectly healthy kids with a cough? And they were taken into hospital?

Are you quite sure? Are you quite sure that there could not be medical issues of which you were unaware?

but anyway, your child is your priority of course, just as their child is theirs, and I think that the hospital really let you down. They absolutely should have properly assessed the risk to your daughter. I hope that your daughter is well and the surgery is a success.

Yanbu. Of course medical need should trump religion in a hospital! The girl in the headscarf did not HAVE to keep it on, she just wanted to. She did not ' need' privacy, she wanted it! The OPs daughters need to not be sick should totally overide the other girls preferences. The consequences are much greater. f course you should try and cater for people's beliefs (religious or not) where possible, that's just polite, but not to the extent that it disadvantages someone else.

Some of the posts on here are PC madness!

I hope your dd gets well soon op and sending you big hugs. You must be so worried.

How bloody sad that a 12 year old child has to cover her head.

But then I find all covering of women and girls mysogynistic clap trap just like all religions.

The rape stats in country's that advocate women covering are horrific so it's obviously nowt to do with men's sexual urges being quelled.

Power and control power and control just like every single other religion.

OP, as I understand it, you were promised you'd have an isolation cubicle when one became available, but when one did become available (sometime before the 12yo arrived) you were not offered it, and your dd suffered as a result. If that is correct, then yes you should complain about it. It stinks!

Any discussion of the validity of the 12yo's need, or her health issues, is irrelevant because your dd should have been in that cubicle before the 12yo arrived.

I hope your daughter is improving!

I honestly have no idea why there was a room free and you weren't in it!!! Your poor dd. We were always given a private room for dd when she was a baby. She wasn't taken up until there was a free room. There may be other reasons why this girl foot the room.but quire frankly of she Was walking, talking and went home next day I can't see how what she had was worse and trumped your dd and her multiple conditions that left her vulnerable in the extreme.

YANBU and I hope your daughter gets well soon

vitalstatistics health care doesn't, or at least shouldn't, operate that way.If a patient (or the patient's parents in this case) refuses the appropiate medical care ,ie removal of the headscarf, on their personal religious beliefs then they don't get to jump the queue at another patients detriment. That is their own choice. The single room should have been allocated to the patient with the greatest medical need of it, and this would appear to be the OP's child, going on what she has told us.
It's absolutely absurd to think that people's religious beliefs should be catered for at the expense of other people in this situation.

Are you absolutely sure that it was purely religious reasons that prevented her from removing the scarf? A 12 year old girl may well have strong feelings about showing any part of her body, and that may well be for her parents to tell doctors.

Some people may say that there is nothing wrong with a woman showing her shoulders in public, but if I choose not to I don't think anyone has a right to insist that I should. And I reserve the right to refuse medical treatment which would require me to do so.

In this case, the medical staff took the decision that a person has the right to decide what clothing to remove in front of others, and made adjustments.

Your child not getting good enough care is a separate issue, and a serious one.

Well said MrsDeVere
I doubt that the headscarf drove the decision but the OP and some other posters have obviously decided otherwise.

I understand you are upset as you felt your daughter was put at risk but in my mind these are two seperate issues and you need to be careful not to mix them.
It has absolutely noting to do with you the decisions the medical team made about another patient
Your issue should be discussing with the medical team why they didn't isolate your daughter, if there were no cubicles available they should have made sure she was with the lowest risk patients possible. It may be the children in the room with you had asthma which is not infectious perhaps that is why you were nursed there.
Ultimately if you are not happy with the care your daughter received raise a complaint with your consultant, the ward manager and PALS. But you will make your point less well if you try to discuss other patients needs as this is nothing to do with you.
I hope your daughter gets well soon, maybe you could ask for open access to the ward and ensure you have a care plan from your consultant that makes it clear if she is admitted she should be nursed in a cubicle as soon as one becomes available if that is what she needs.

YANBU, medical reasons should take priority every time.

I think if I were you I would complain about your daughter's treatment. She caught an infection because she wasn't isolated, despite a room becoming available.

You need to resolve this so if/when DD gets hospitalised again, her needs are prioritised. Even if this means that next time you are the nuisance mum who is shouting and hysterical - at least you can now talk about what happened 'last time' and how you won't allow it to happen again. The squeaky wheel gets the oil unfortunately.

I hope your daughter gets well soon.

YANBU - I would be livid

Complain

Hope your daughter gets better soon

Yanbu, I've read your threads before and from what I undetstabd you have a very poorly child who would have benefited from their own room.

The other child received better care because the medical Staff believed that her right to not show her hair superseded your Childs needs to an isolated room.

I think you should complain.

yanbu
I think your daughter needed the room more

I hope she feels better soon

The medical staff who made that decision should be fired, there's no hope for people that unconcerned for human life. Hospitals are supposed to make medical decisions not endanger sick people while pandering to the fairy tale followers.

Outrageous, unprofessional, incredibly stupid and I'd make an official complaint.

I think it is quite possible that the medical staff prioritized the other kid on the grounds of not wanting a huge 'Racist hospital mistreats child' fuss. But, as others have said, the real issue is the lack of facilities and funding in the NHS and there simply not being enough cubicles for all the patients in need of them.