Should the GP not have been able to do this?

[ohthatbloodycat]

This strikes me as a bit ridiculous, but do correct me if you feel I'm in the wrong.
My 15 year old got her ears pierced as a birthday treat a week ago. I think the earring on one side had been fitted a bit too tightly; it had always been tender, but got sore last night. My plan had been to go to the piercing place in the morning to ask their advice.
This morning when my daughter woke up, the stud part at the front had completely embedded itself in her lobe. All you could see was the butterfly sticking out the back. Her ear became swollen and very painful, unsurprisingly enough. I should add that she cleaned them each day religiously, and the other ear was fine.
Because the skin had closed over it in the night, I wasn't able to pull it out myself. I phoned our GP surgery for some advice. The receptionist checked and then came back to say that the GP wouldn't do it, and the practice nurse was busy all day. I then had the faff of phoning 111 (on GP's advice) and they eventually sorted me out an appointment at the A&E hospital miles away. There was no time to take the bus (I don't have a car currently), so I spent £20 on a taxi there. And then the bus on the way home. My daughter wasn't numbed up, or anything like that. The nurse warned her that it would be painful, as he pulled the stud through the skin of her ear. And it was, but over quickly thankfully!
This seemed like a palaver for a simple procedure, that surely the GP could have carried out. Rather than leave the paediatric A&E department to sort it out, particularly as Covid cases have risen in my city.
Even the NHS phone operator sounded surprised that they had refused to do it.
AIBU?

@SofiaMichelle

I don't think I understand Mumsnet very well at times.

It's simple enough - if you're wrong you'll be told you're wrong rather than getting a load of "awww hun" replies.

Oh, I don't mind being told I'm wrong. In fact, I welcome being opened up to a different perspective, as I find it really helpful. Not once have I objected to being told I'm on the wrong. But the rudeness and batshittery displayed by some people are uncalled for.

There is a very vocal "Never go to A+E unless you are almost dead" narrative on here.

That's very true.

Thank you so much for the understanding from lots of other posters though - it is appreciated. Even more so because it somehow seems to gall the others

@ohthatbloodycat

Thanks. It has been a shit day all in, and I regret posting on here, and some of the replies have got me down. I don't think I understand Mumsnet very well at times. Ah well, at least her ear is now sorted, which is the main thing. Talk about a birthday treat gone wrong!

I hope she is ok. You have done nothing wrong! Some replies are bonkers.

earrings …. And some of us actually do read the OP’s posts and call her out on it, she then gets stroppy and telling us to read correctly - that she actually did go to piercer - yet she NEVER said this until page 4! 4 pages before she changes her story to suit herself.

I wouldn't have thought a GP would do this as it would be like first aid or a minor op which most do not do.

I don't think YABU OP, it seems the sort of thing a GP should easily be able to do if you couldn't manage it yourself.

Then again my (childhood) GP was the one who pierced my ears

@NumberTheory

I think YABU, not because you should have gone to the piercer or jumped through whatever other hoop random MNers who treat AIBU as sport have thought up, but because I think your expectations for GPs are probably a bit out of date. Even though they are "General" Practitioners, GPs clinic seemed to have specialised roles a lot more in recent decades by bringing in non-Dr qualified HCPs to do a significant range of procedures that are often better when done with the sort of skill that comes from repeated practice. And when you have other people doing those tasks for you, you become much less good at them yourself because you don't get any practice. The GP may have feared they'd be as clumsy as you feared you be.

So if the person at the surgery who has those skills, the practice nurse in this case, had no availability then sending you elsewhere makes sense. It wasn't that the clinic wasn't able to deal with that type of issue, it was that they didn't have the capacity when you needed it.

That is absolutely fair enough, and a very good point.

@Blindstupid

earrings …. And some of us actually do read the OP’s posts and call her out on it, she then gets stroppy and telling us to read correctly - that she actually did go to piercer - yet she NEVER said this until page 4! 4 pages before she changes her story to suit herself.

She said it in her third post. A whole 9 or so minutes after she posted. I am on the app, not the website, so don't know how many pages in that was, but either way, you can select all OP's posts & read them, one after another.

The things people find to beat a poster up about. 🙄

@Blindstupid

earrings …. And some of us actually do read the OP’s posts and call her out on it, she then gets stroppy and telling us to read correctly - that she actually did go to piercer - yet she NEVER said this until page 4! 4 pages before she changes her story to suit herself.

I've already agreed that I didn't make myself clear on that particular point.

It wasn't even the substantive point of your AIBU tho bloodycat! You were asking if the GP should have been able to do it.

It amazes me how rude people become on here over the simplest of things. The OP asked a question and people jumped.

Not many GPs will do stuff like this now unfortunately because it can be classed as minor surgery. A hospital has much more sterile, routine cleaning happening to be able to do these kinds of things but a GPs will rarely be allowed to do this kind of stuff unless it's planned, prepared and you still have to sign a consent form.
My friend is a nurse at a GPs and she does the blood pressure stuff and blood tests and flu jabs etc. She once told me GPs were told they aren't insured to get involved in these kinds of things, they're there to diagnose and refer. If your daughter had gone to the GPs they'd have likely sent her to A&E after seeing her.
It does seem unnecessary but their rooms are not "surgery" ready. Anything with an open wound or bleeding or breaking skin requires a minimum level of cleanliness.

I hope your daughter's feeling better now

True, but I think the original point is long gone!

[quote Sadsiblingatsea]@Summersun2020 “an already stretched GP”... are you a comedian? GP’s surgeries are barely open, they have never been less stretched.
Some of them even have time to develop lucrative side-hustles, like Dr Julia Grace, who is busy designing and flogging face masks.
Ain’t life grand![/quote]
She's a psychiatry trainee, not a GP the

@GoldieLow

Thanks

Thanks. It has been a shit day all in, and I regret posting on here, and some of the replies have got me down. I don't think I understand Mumsnet very well at times. Ah well, at least her ear is now sorted, which is the main thing.

You’ve had a lot of unnecessarily shitty replies, it’s quite unbelievable. But sometimes you just never know what triggers the mumsnet nuclear button. Steer clear of mentioning piercing guns in future - at least your daughter is 15 and not 5 otherwise you would have gotten 10 times the abuse. Piercings I have found are a triggering subject in general. I only found out recently on here that my fairly conservative and sensible seeming mum was in fact a raging child abuser because she let me get my ears pierced when I was 5... until I joined mumsnet I was complete oblivious to the extreme psychological harm and physical mutilation that had befallen me!

People jumped because the OP was rude to them. Complaining they hadn’t read properly, when actually, it was the OP who didn’t say the ‘true’ version. The OP made a mistake then berated others for getting it wrong.

The GP refused to get a splinter out of my son’s leg after one became embedded under the skin , and sent us to the minor injuries unit. They failed to be able to get it out and advised a trip to A&E. I couldn’t face going to A&E with something that seemed so trivial, so I put some drawing paste on it, and after a few days managed to break the skin and get it out.
I have a feeling the GP wouldn’t carry out any procedure that involved breaking the skin. Maybe this was why the GP wouldn’t help in your case?

You are being a bit unreasonable. I wouldn't have expected my doctor to do this , to answer your original question. Personally I'd have told my daughter ' this is going to hurt a bit!' and done it myself

I remember I had the exact same thing happen to me when I was 13 and had them pierced for the first time. My mum took me straight to our local A&E where they sprayed my ear with this freezing cold spray and cut it out.

Some GPs do minor injuries, but not many. It's what it is.

@Blindstupid

So now let me be really rude: toddle off and get a life!

What a bloody waste of NHS time.

The very point of the NHS is preventative care, so you’re wrong.

Do you not have a walk in centre where you live?

GPs don’t do this sort of thing as they don’t have the equipment and if it goes wrong and starts bleeding everywhere they’re not the best people to deal with it. I work in A&E and here or a Minor Injuries Unit are the best equipped places to deal with it, we also have ENT specialists on site who deal with the really nasty ones that have formed abscesses and/or small children where general anaesthetic is sometimes required.

It’s very frustrating that some piercing salons don’t train their staff to sort out complications and expect the NHS to pick up the pieces after they’ve pocketed their money.