Hi everyone,
so my almost 2 year old son started vomiting yesterday at around 11 am and developed a fever.
I kept the fever down with the appropriate doses of paracetamol.
He didn't want to drink water, but he drank milk, which kept him hydrated.
He ate a bit of pasta.
He wasn't lethargic, he played a bit during the day and watched Cocomelon.
For this reason I decided not to take him to A&E.
In the evening he developed 40 degrees fever, which wouldn't go down with paracetamol. We also already had given him 4 doses in 24 hours, so couldn't give him anymore.
My husband therefore decided to take him to A&E. I stayed at home with our 4 month old baby.
The nurse there told him off and said we should have brought him in straight away when he started vomiting.
She said she would be reporting us to the health visitor/social services as she was "concerned about our parenting".
She said this to my husband in a room full of other parents and patients.
It was quite a humiliating experience for him.
My husband then spoke to a doctor. The doctor admitted that the nurse might be "overzealous", but that there is a new department in the hospital, which has to ensure doctors and nurses follow the correct safeguarding procedures.
The reason is the recent cases of severe child neglect/abuse, for which the media blamed health professionals that they didn't help the children.
I can completely understand this, but surely it is normal to treat vomiting and fever at home before you present your child to A & E?
I am not from this country, so is there something I am missing?
I remember as a child when I was ill and vomited and had fever, my mother treated us at home and made soup for us and brought the fever down with tablets.
In case of very high fever she took us to the doctors.
I already reported the nurse to PALS, because we disagree with her abrupt behaviour and that she said what she said in front of other patients and didn't care about confidentiality.
We're quite concerned that this will go on our record and get us into problems and we sincerely don't understand the nurse's behaviour.