receptionist said i should have sent daughter into school... was i unreasonable?

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hi, i have signed up to ask about this, so im sorry if i get something wrong. how do i change my username and password? i have got one given to me.

my daughter is 12. she is doing well at school. on friday we went to the doctor as her urine infection wasnt cleaning up. the doctor confirmed it was a urine infection. she was given some antibiotics. told to take for 3 days, things still arent fully cleared up so she is taking for a further 4 days, which was advised and then anytime longer i should take her back.

i was driving her to school and we stopped off at a local shop. she came in but was complaining of pain and needing to go to the toilet. it was so bad she had to go back to the car. she needed the toilet every 5 mins, even if it wasnt to pee, like a normal infection really and was saying it was painful, so i advised that she stay off as it was just going to be far too difficult for her to be at school with it. she then sat in the bath for about 3 hours which helped. i had already left a voicemail on the school phone saying she wont be going in but i got a call from the receptionist to clarify why she isnt in, i said she is on antibiotics for a urine infection and that its best that she is off as the symptoms are still bad. she told me to wait a minute, so i did. she then told me that she still should have come in as the school nurse could have given her a toilet pass, if she had a note from the doctor explaining why. i said that there were other symptoms that just that which meant it was just best she stay off but that she will catch up on work. she asked what the further symptoms were, which i said that they were a bit too personal really and that it doesnt really matter. she said it does as she needs to judge if its an unauthorised abscence or if its sickness... i said that she can decide what she would like and i basically ended the conversation there. it will go down as unauthorised. am i being the mad one here???

I'm just recovering from a recent UTI so I have so much sympathy for your DD and hope that she feels better soon.

I wanted to correct the pp who recommend drinking cranberry juice because it won't help once a full blown attack of cystitis has started. Cranberry juice is quite acidic so it can actually make it more painful to pass water. It is much better to stick to drinking plain water until the antibiotics start to work.

The school receptionist is completely wrong, so you do need to write a letter of complaint about her terrible attitude.

I would have said 'Who do you think you are? I'm not ASKING you, I'm TELLING you. This will be marked down as 'sick' and I will be speaking to the Head'.

I'm sure any school receptionists on MN are lovely, but many (but by no means all) of the others are power hungry, nosey, numpties.

Every school should have a sickness policy.

So in this case, there may have been bad communication from the head or nurse to the receptionist - often it will be up to 3 days off sick without a note, and after that a doctors note.

Ask for their sickness policy which should really be clear.

the last UTI i had it was so bad i had to phone the school to say I couldnt get the DC into school. In which the headteacher actually came and took my DC to school.

hope you DD gets well soon.

Ywnbu

It is beyond the scope of a receptionist job to decide whether your child is well enough to be at school.

I had recurrent cystitis after every period for almost a year once. Poor love it's horrible.

When I first got it, I wasn't diagnosed because I had an infection close to my kidneys, my pain wasn't where cystitis normally is so it wasn't identified by the doctor as cystitis and after over a week. I ended up going to hospital A&E because of the unbearable pain and high fever - and infection spread to kidneys. So no, staying off school is definitely not unreasonable.

I drank bicarbonate of soda mixed with water exclusively. It reduced the acidity and took away much of the pain and reduced the need to pee constantly. It doesn't taste great and doesn't cure the infection but it's worth it. Approx 1 level tsp in a pint of water.

I als bought pure 100% unsweetened cranberry juice and that cleared it in the end. You don't need to drink much. A pp said it's very acidic. I don't know if they were talking about this or ocean Spring (no good for cystitis only 10% cranberry juice). I used to drink say 30 ml a couple of times a day.

Judgmental old boot!!! I'd be in the head's office tbh explaining that it's not unauthorised attendance as your child was in great pain as well as needing the loo constantly. I get cystitis sometimes and it can be ok, other times it's seriously painful and I've passed blood too as its been so inflamed. I've also had a kidney infection which is dreadful pulsating pain, I sometimes go to work and other times I don't if it's that bad so IMO it's your job as mum to decide, not the poxy receptionist cow, rest can help!!!

Whothe bloody hell does she think she is?

The receptionists at DCs' primary were like this. Officious, rude and snippy

Hope your DD feels better today

Has the op been back at all? Just asking.

i am reading all your replies, sorry that i havent responded, i was following from my phone and just hadnt logged in

As a GP, this gives me the rage. Firstly, there is no way I would advise a child with a UTI to go to school if she has symptoms (not everyone with UTIs does) - it would be miserable to be running to the loo every 5 minutes and she will get teased.

Secondly, I have got better things to do with my time to write notes so that schools can give children toilet passes! A school should use common sense, not waste NHS resources to enforce its own stupid rules .

I've had cystitis only twice in my life and each time I was in agony - sitting in a bath, drinking one of the cystitis sachets from the chemist (probably just flavoured bicarb or similar.. but the relief from them is immense!) - only for a day or so - although even by the second day I wasn't exactly 100%!

Of course you were right to keep her home - it would be some insane torture to send anyone into school or work with a painful UTI!

Ridiculous. You cannot go to school / work with full blown cystitis. I got shivery and felt generally unwell. A week later travelled to kidneys and I was properly properly ill.

Tip I drink half a pint of water every morning so don't need to worry then if don't drink enough in day. Mine was caused by not enough water drinking I think - in my twenties was slap dash about self care and drank white wine with dinner instead of water - learned the hard way not to do that!

I'm guessing the school is generally 'in trouble' over attendance, or fears that it could be, hence officiousness and pressure. Absolutely no excuse for this unhelpfulness and insensitivity though, so do complain. They are quite OTT here.

A school should use common sense, not waste NHS resources to enforce its own stupid rules

As a GP, presumably working closely with partner agencies for the best outcomes for children, I'm surprised you don't know that these are not the school's "stupid rules". They come directly from central government. If schools don't provide concrete evidence of what they're doing to improve whole-school attendance, they can fail an inspection. That's a far bigger problem for the local community than the cost of providing a sick note for a patient.

As a GP, presumably working closely with partner agencies for the best outcomes for children, I'm surprised you don't know that these are not the school's "stupid rules"

Firstly, read the OP - the note relates to a toilet pass, not the attendance. So it is the school's own rule.

Secondly, GPs are there to provide health care and not enforce rules about attendance. There is clear guidance that GPs are not required to provide notes for schools, so perhaps it is you who are unfamiliar with the rules? Of course, if there are concerns about welfare, we become involved, but the OP's DD has a perfect attendance record.

Our local GP surgery provides notes for their patients who are pupils in our school because we work closely on many issues around early help intervention and they understand that the welfare of the child is paramount. I appreciate not all GP surgeries will be as helpful as ours.

I'm not aware of having suggested GPs are respondible for enforcing rules about attendance but do correct me if I did.

There are 8 million schoolchildren in this country so you are looking at - at a bare minimum - 10 million episodes of sickness a year. There are already nationwide shortages of GPs, with many people struggling to get appointments, without GPs writing 10 million notes for schools a year.

Writing a sick note is a piss-easy consultation for me - much easier than seeing someone who is actually ill. But I would rather reserve appointments for people who need them.

Our GPs write notes for children who attend a consultation because they are ill.

So they tick both boxes for what you consider a worthwhile use of an appointment.

Rhonda, your snide posts come across as one of those pleasant Admin staff members at GP surgeries we sometimes read about on here.

I don't work in a GP surgery

Definitely write to the head making sure the days off aren't counted as unauthorised. Definitely query that a school receptionist appears to be asking for details/making these judgements. But also definitely go back to the doctor re the cystitis and foods/drinks to avoid and possible reference to a specialist. A 12 year old shouldn't be in agony sitting in a warm bath (nor should anyone else, but this is quite young for such bad cystitis). Waterfall-D-Mannose can help but the Lord forbid it's interstitial cystitis.

rhonda the BMA spent a great deal of time working with the DOE to prevent the have to get a sick note issue when schools first started going into overdrive with it.

The outcome was child sick notes were actually removed from the nhs contract and the DOE stated that they should only be asked for if genuine reason exists to believe dishonesty about sickness or if sickness is long term

Sounds like we're very lucky with our GP practice then.