AIBU to think vomiting people should be isolated in waiting rooms?

[HungryHippoMummy]

At out of hours (Which doubles as minor injuries) with my DH and DD(2). I had to drive him as gardening injury before anyone asks why the family outing!
There is a girl vomiting in the waiting room. Likelihood is it's a nasty bug. It could be non contagious but since she's not been seen yet they have no way of knowing.
I'm immunocompromised and this would hospitalise me. I also obviously don't want DH or DD to catch it, and I'm sure the other people in the waiting room don't either! Aibu to think she should be isolated whilst she waits? By definition this is a room of vulnerable people and she's actively spewing everywhere!

I suppose in an ideal world, then yes. But I suppose it depends if there is anywhere to put her.

Could you not leave now with your dd?

Yes, ideally she should, for her comfort aswell, but unfortunately we don’t live in an ideal works and there’s quite likely nowhere to isolate her.

Could you not have just dropped DH and gone back to get him later

I have, we're sitting in the car now whilst DH stays with the vomit particles. It's at the hospital, they have a zillion treatment rooms currently closed because it's after hours. They could totally isolate if they thought about it.

I was thinking this yesterday. I had DS in a&e with an injury yesterday, and there were quite a few unwell looking children including one child who was a very alarming colour and holding a sick bowl. I do not need my kids floored with a vomiting bug! But what can you do?

To be fair though, a while ago it was me vomiting in a&e, but it was acute appendicitis rather than a contagious bug.

They haven't got the staff, they haven't got the time. If they open a room, then staff have to keep an eye on it. Lobby the government and say you want to pay more tax for the NHS.

Honestly, I think the onus is on the immunocompromised to either request private room (if they are the patient) or leave and come back later if they can.

Sucks though, I'm sorry you're experiencing that OP

I’m sure the poor girl would have loved to be able to vomit in private rather than in a full waiting room. They may have lots of closed treatment rooms but then they would have to have staff available to monitor someone they put in there and then find staff to deep clean any room that is used.

I hope your DH (or she) is seen quickly & you can get home soon.

The advice is probably not to visit a&e with a vomitting bug.
Why wouldnt they wait in the loos?

We had to take my baby in for something v contagious that we didn't want other people to catch. We phoned ahead and explained and they ushered us into a separate room as soon as we got there. I think the onus should be on patients as well to be considerate of each other

A&e works in a different way
We spent a lot of time in a&e daughter has sever health problems.
They can’t isolate everyone who maybe infectious as there isn’t the space !
A&e is riddled with loads from D&v to hand foot and mouth.
They DO isolate immune compromised people like daughter though away from waiting room as there is less of her
It was kinda your choice to be waiting with him knowing your vulnerable.

If old enough it could just be hymeremesis

I think those immune compromised should seperate themselves

There just won't be the staffing and funding to have a separate waiting room. Most doctors and hospitals are the same. Everyone in together.

Only time I've ever been isolated on arriving at the doctors was when I'd phoned before hand and they thought I might have swine flu, as well as pneumonia. I was also sent to the isolation wards on the topical diseases unit at the hospital when I was admitted just in case. It was actually pneumonia without the swine flu but I stayed on the same ward - which was all individual rooms (some has special double door systems so assume they were specific tropical diseases they were trying to contain) - for a few days until the antibiotics kicked in.

Honestly, these bugs are self limiting and they should just stay the fuck at home. Unless you feel like they need IV fluids (I’m guessing the majority of vomiting kids in A&E don’t) then do everyone a favour and stay home.

I was in A&E with my son last month, and there was a boy of about ten who obviously felt like crap and had a sick bowl nearby, but he didn’t vomit once in the hour I sat waiting. He was sipping water and keeping it down. He 100% did not need to be at A&E.

Haworthia you don't know whether or not someone needs to be at a&e

Could also depend on whether any of the staff been made aware child is vomiting ?

However there are so many illnesses that are contagious and serious for anyone immunosuppressed it would be impossible to both identify and seperate out every person that is infectious.

Perhaps if you are worried you could wear a face mask whenever in small room with anyone at all as most diseases are contagious before signs and symptoms show never mind by the time at gp or hospital.

I know most people have no awareness of immunosuppression never mind think about it and make HCP aware .l but there are notices in every doctors waiting room I've been in advising people not to attend with colds, flu etc .

You don't know why the other person was being sick.
You'd have been judging us sat with my DD with a sick bowl... Yet she wasn't contagious.

She'd hit her head on the floor, hours later she started being sick so we took her to a&e....and ended up being air lifted to a bigger hospital and having a CT scan.

It's not a&e though, it's an out of hours GP? There's nothing they can even do other than send her next door (with her parents, primary school age, definitely not hyperemesis). I always get hospitalised with vomiting bugs and I always insist on being put away from other patients. I've never been to GP because they literally can't do anything and it just infects others.

I had the same experience as a PP. was recently in children’s a&e with my baby and a young boy was sitting in the waiting room with a sick bowl discussing with a nurse how many times he’d vomited in the last few hours ...

Felt sorry for the little lad but was quite relieved DS was in a cubicle and so I only had to walk through the waiting room to go to the loo etc rather than sit in there. But such is the nature of hospitals/ clinics ...

You don’t know the child though.
My daughter vomits up to 10 time a day every day.
She could be in a gp or out of hours service a lot !
But she isn’t contagious in the slightest
You don’t know the child or why they are there and your not even a patient ...

I've never been to GP because they literally can't do anything and it just infects others.

But it depends on the reason why she is vomiting. It may not be a d&v type bug. It could be something non contagious, even in a child.

Yeah my DD was sick as a dog the last time she was in a&e but hers was concussion.

And when my nephew was being sick in a&e his was appendicitis too. There's lots of reasons a child might vomit that aren't just bugs.

Last time my DD was vomiting in A and E it was intussusception...

It does wind me up when people pre judge why you are there with tbh I wouldn’t of gone without knowing anything.

I took daughter at 8 months old to a&e / out of hours service she was vomiting and could clearly see that.
She wasn’t infectious infact she was dieing.
She was in right sided heart failure and intestinal failure.
She was starved.
She hasn’t been absorbing any nutrition as her bowel had been cut of from blood flow she didn’t return home until 20 months later !