To think drunk teen shouldn't be in paeds A&E?

[Us3r21422]

NC for this in case picked up by the likes the of Daily Fail etc.

Took DD to paeds A&E last night due to concerns about dehydration after 5 days of gastro bug and decreasing tolerance for fluids and no wet nappy for 12 hours. Luckily she is OK and we were allowed home after some anti sickness meant she could tolerate water, but the place was full of really sick babies and toddlers. Dr said 4 cases of D&V/dehydration, plus a query sepsis child, croup etc.

I heard someone approach the nurses station and say they were bringing a drunk 15 year old and his parents round from adult A&E, no particular reason given, so assume this was purely based on his age. He did say dad was struggling to manage said drunk teen.

At this point I knew we were going home, so no real skin in the game, but I thought to myself that if the teen was that drunk, was paeds A&E really the place to bring him when he would have received presumably the same medical care in adult A&E?

As I say, no big deal to me as we were leaving, but I'm not sure I'd have been happy with a drunk/loud/aggressive/silly teen in the cubicle next to us. More so for the other parents and children who were really very very poorly and had clearly been there a long time, were very tired, waiting for a bed on the ward etc.

So - aibu to think drunk teen probably should have stayed in adult A&E and that it's not really desirable for a 15 year old who's had a few too many to be in the same (very small) department as lots of really unwell younger children?

A few years ago, my 12.5 yr ld was 6ft 1 - sick as a dog with sepsis and someone like you OP objected to him being on the paeds ward, thought it was inappropriate - he looked older than he was.
He was still a child in a v big body who was not ready to be with adult patients.

One parent got so worked up about it - we got moved to the side room!!!!

Children are children, we base it on chronology in this country - not on the way someone looks.

He is now 15 - 6ft5.5ins and currently sitting on an adult ward because his size meant to some parents he should not be with other children. Luckily the nursing staff on the ward are fab and once again we find ourselves in a precious side room. Ill teens lose all their bravado and act /feel extremely vulnerable - it is about treating the whole child not just a number.
Thank you NHS staff- yet again, fab care

Haven't RTFT but basically ... You overheard nurses gossiping about a drunk child coming in (I believe it's not your fault that you overheard it btw but that's irrelevent)....You didn't even see this child and they caused you no trouble whatsoever nor do you know if they caused anyone else any trouble....You presumebly know nothing about safeguarding or what measures the hospital put in place to keep either the teen or the young kids safe.... you presumably have zero knowledge or experience of what it's like for that teenager to be in paeds ED vs adult ED.... and yet you're posting online and effectively gossiping to an infinite number of people and trying to police how hospitals with lots of the above experience deal with the situation and are shaming teenagers (and their parents) who get into such situations into believing that because they've done something a bit daft they don't deserve the specialist treatment of children's clinicians?? Is it a boring Sunday for you? Maybe go do some knitting instead ...

I'm sorry that's happened to your son. I did actually hope they'd pop him and his family in a side room so they'd have a bit of privacy to be honest, but I'm not sure there were any. I hope your DS gets well soon.

I’ve taken my child who wasn’t able to hold down any fluids because of a sickness but to A and E. she was immediately taken in and given fluids etc. not sure why people think that can’t turn into an emergency? My daughter was 5. I would have thought younger was needing more care.

The thread has moved on and the OP has acknowledged the issues which have been pointed out to her.

Why do you ‘often think’ about how annoyed you’d be now by something your partner did as a teen? Seems very strange behaviour.

Or perhaps it’s just not true, is it?

Same thing here @lookluv 6’5 14 year old having seizures, shouting, vomiting, walking very unsteadily (probably looking and sounding drunk) in children’s A&E bay. So much tutting and judging from parents of small children. Obviously we totally ignored them and stayed where we were; there was no where else to go.

Alcohol poisoning is a medical emergency for teens. Teenagers can - and do - die after a bender.

Last month in our local (huge, London)A&E a 13 year old died after drinking a bottle of vodka.

Doctors kept him alive for two days but his organs shut down. Family in unspeakable state.

He wasn’t the first by a long shot.

In an ideal world teens should be in a ward on Paeds and smaller children in another ward, but in our hospital that doesn't always happen- they give the teens side rooms for privacy often, but sometimes they are too full so they all go in the same ward. People with small toddlers aren't usually looking daggers IMO, their kids are often crying a lot/even screaming, or running about when a bit better or waiting for tests, not all children in paeds are limp and quiet! Babies with drug withdrawal make piercing cries, my dd (teen) has been really upset listening to them.

In an ideal world, acute assessment and adult wards should have separate wards for dementia patient, for those with psychosis/MH issues (if they aren't going to psychiatric, say have an injury) and so on . Again, in the real world, they muddle along in the NHS trying to separate people out but often failing e.g. men in with women, they try to put the man in the side room, dying people in side rooms. There aren't enough rooms!

That said, I've been in the NHS again recently (frequent flier) and they were fantastic, absolutely great, my care was attentive, second to none, great nursing, great communication- everything you don't think is happening right now, but it is in pockets, I was very pleased with the treatment I got. A and E remains a shit show to be endured unfortunately.

What do some posters find so unsavoury about this 15 year old, that means they’d rather them be out of sight an the adult portion of the ED?

Look back again on this when your Dd is 15.
How would you feel if she was in a highly vulnerable state in a ward for adults

13yr old DS has to go to A&E a couple of months ago with a broken finger. We went to adult A&E and were directed to children’s A&E round the corner. It was a long wait, they were clearly rushed off their feet. When we were eventually seen, the doctor apologised for the wait and explained she worked in adult A&E but had been drafted into childrens as they were so busy.

She was absolutely fantastic, checked his x-rays and confirmed the break. She explained to him she wasn’t used to working with children, but seeing as he seemed a ‘sensible young man’ she’d explain everything to him like an adult if that was OK. She also explained she’d strap him up as she would an adult, but he obviously had much smaller hands/fingers and given his age, growth spurts, growth plates and that his bones were that of a child, she really wanted him see by a paediatric hand specialist to be on the safe side - which she organised the referral for. My point being, that as teens, they still have the bodies of children, and so need to be treated by people familiar with how children’s bodies work.

I voted YABU @Us3r21422 because you’re ignorant and judgmental

paediatric A&E is for all people under 18 years of age. Non-adults

it’s about safeguarding and consent

Adult A&E is a terrifing place most of the time, let alone for a teen. Ffs.

Ignore the fool, any adult that can't see a child qoth a dry nappy for 12 hours absolutely is an emergency and needs to be seen ASAP. Hope she is OK

In an ideal world there would be separate area for teens. But it's not and so teens with mental health issues and intoxication are in the same place as babies and toddlers. It's not ideal for either group but there you go. I always try to think that when my younger child was in hospital and witnessing things I would have preferred him not to know about at his age then it's much worse for the person experiencing it.

No way did paeds staff
react like you say. A 15 year old is a child and the nurses/doctors would fully expect to treat him - drunk or not.

When your own child is a teenager you may find yourself very glad that paediatric services are available for them.

It's disappointing that you don't view a teenager aged under 18 as a child but sadly this unpleasant view is pretty commonplace.

I'd welcome a separate provision within paediatric a&e for babies and small children. Then my 14 year old desperately ill son wouldn't have had to wait 6 hours to be seen (he was then admitted for 3 weeks) whilst a parade of snotty toddlers were checked over and sent home.

When I was 21, I started having seizures. My first one, I fell to the ground shaking and lost consciousness and am ambulance was called. I was at work at the time and accompanied to the hospital by my boss. The doctors and nurses insisted I was just drunk even though I hadn’t drunk a single drop of alcohol and had been at work. No tests were done, nothing was checked and I was eventually discharged because I’d “sobered up”.

I have been thinking about this a lot lately. I work with a trust of schools and was recently involved in co-writing a policy document which had to cover all of the students within the trust, from 3 year olds in nursery to 18 year olds in sixth form. After going back and forth, fudging clunky terms like 'children and young people' we took the decision just to refer to them all unilaterally as 'children'.

As you say, people like the OP don't think of 15 year olds as children and it's very counter-intuitive for many people to try and do so. Nevertheless I think for a long time we in secondary schools went too far the opposite way to try and avoid infantilising teenagers by studiously avoiding the word 'children' but it's incredibly important that we do recognise that this is what they are, even if they are 6' plus, or shaving every day, or a D cup (as I was at that age).

@Us3r21422

Next time, stop listening in to things that are nothing to do with you, and keep your nose out. Maybe stop judging people aswell. You've made a fool of yourself on this thread.

He needed to be in pads because he is a child. And if he needed to be kept in overnight (possibly more than one night if alcohol poisoning was involved) then he would need to be a pads ward because no under 18 year old should be put on an adult ward (although 16+ sometimes are) because A) their parents aren't always allowed to stay on adult wards and B) hospitals are too short-staffed to effectively safeguard them and as kids they aren't as proficient at safeguarding themselves as some adults are.

I might have misunderstood but I thought the OPs issue was the drunkenness not the age.

It is odd as a 15 year old is closer physically to an adult than a toddler! But that's the way it's structured here.
My daughter is 17 and has been under a consultants care. As her issues are partially hormonal it's even more odd that she is seeing a paediatrician. And last time we were at the hospital even the nurse was laughing when she was trying to measure the height of a full grown lad of 16 with facial hair - she had to get a footstool!
I think 14 and above they should age out of paediatric care if through puberty.