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?

Yes he is a child. The fall from your high horse will be mighty once you have a teenager!

Sorry @MirabelMax it wasn't intentional. I am knackered this morning, we didn't get in until 3am 😴

Yabu. A child needs to be treated on paediatrics regardless of the reason. Tbh I've had far bigger concerns about children with potentially highly infectious diseases being placed in bays with vulnerable immuno compromised children.
Why do you think it's OK for a child to be on an adult ward?

The child should absolutely be in the section for children.

On a separate note the hospital sounds horribly unprofessional, telling you all the reasons that kids were there for and then talking loudly about not wanting to treat a patient. They need to talk some place where parents can't overhear everything, and stop discussing other patients with parents too.

Until 16 they are still treated whatever issue I'm peads. Yes perhaps a 15 year old shouldn't of got that drunk but they do.

Staff get pissed off at dealing with drunk people regardless of age. That doesn’t mean a child should be treated with adults. It’s part of the job and if they’re so judgemental, they’re going to find a lot of days hard in the job they’re in.

would have received presumably the same medical care in adult A&E?

Not necessarily true, depends on various factors, paed medicine experts should be involved. Funny how many things are still different in juvenile human body (from adults) before age 19... or any age. Lots of health choices depend on your age.

Why are all these doctors discussing other patients with you in such detail that you know exactly what every child in the ward is there for? For that reason alone I’m confident this didn’t happen.

When my son was in paeds they put all the kids with similar illnesses together, so all the kids in our bay had respiratory illnesses. Presumably to minimise spread of illness. The doctor addressed the four of us together since we were all admitted at the same time with the same combo of illnesses (croup/bronchiolitis)

As others have pointed out a 15 year is still a child.

There are all sorts of reasons why a 15 year old may have had 'a few too many' including having a drink spiked or not yet being able to judge the impact of alcohol consumption despite what they are taught and advised as they grow up.

The parents were obviously concerned enough to take their son to hospital which is a responsible thing to do if in doubt. And the hospital would have made their decision based on his age to direct them to the children's section.

You come across as very judgmental. Maybe when your daughter is 15 you will look back on this with an alternative view.

Errr okay @FormerGossip... I mean I think I overheard intoxicated rather than drunk, but the staff were really quite blasé about it and definitely didn't seem keen to take him. Not sure why you think I'd make it up?

I presume all the staff there know what they are doing? And who should be seen when and how?

Intoxicated, yes. Drunk, no. As you have just admitted, drunk was not what was said which is what I pointed out. What else are you dramatising?

As a mum of much older teens, 15 feels so young to me. It feels old to you now.

Drunk people of any any age are annoying but he was in the right place.

I remember being at paeds A&E when DD was a toddler. A teenage girl was brought in, absolutely hammered, and howling. I think she’d fallen over and they suspected she had broken bones in both arms. She was making a lot of noise, which wasn’t great for my DD, but we were out fairly swiftly.

They didn't. She just admitted she was listening into private conversations and adjusting the wording to suit her narrative. Drama queen.

To clarify - of course no one was discussing it with me but it's a little difficult not to hear when they're talking at normal conversation volume 2ft away from you on the other side of a curtain!

Completely agree with posters re not wanting to mix with kids with gastro bugs or infectious kids mixing with immuno compromised kids. They is clearly not ideal. We've been to other hospitals with isolation rooms before, but this one didn't seem to have any that I could see. I actually made a poibt of staying at the furthest end of the waiting room and obviously wearing a mask so that I was doing all I physically could to keep us away from others. And I made staff aware at check in that dd was still vomiting, although I was past 48 hours.

I think you are making up the facts as you go along to tell yourself you are right. Many new parents do this and once their kids reach the next age bracket they start to see it from a different stance. When your kid is a teenager and getting pissed you will see it differently too.

in the meantime maybe stay out of it and remember the NHS is for everyone.

Because they are a child still !! There's no stipulation on what the emergency is

Not necessarily. My 14yo was admitted to hospital extremely intoxicated. He did not annoy anyone. The staff were incredibly professional, kind and concerned. He was unconscious, very cold and his breathing was a concern. Alcohol poisoning in children is extremely serious. He did not yell or make any sort of disturbance, just lay there unconscious. We did not know what had happened to him and it turned out he had been the victim of a crime. Never judge what you don't know.

He's a child. An adult sized child with SN may not be in control of their behaviour either but children belong in the children's department.

15 is a child so of course they were in the right place. Have a bit of compassion.

Shock news but teenagers do make bad choices sometimes. They are still children though and need the same care and protection as your precious first born.

I’m more surprised you took your child to A&E as it’s sounds neither an accident or an emergency - surely there were other options?

Is this really how people use A&E?

Not only this, I remember when I was about 15, I had gone to a club night for underage people - they obviously didn’t sell alcohol, but it was well known that the teens pre drank. Except this week I hadn’t, I was sober.

When in the club, I became confused, I couldn’t see straight, I became so sleepy I couldn’t keep my eyes open, I was shivering, and couldn’t stop vomiting.

I got chucked out of the club. My friends came with me obviouslzfy and we headed back to the train station. By this point they were holding me up. They realised that it was probably a bad idea to take me on the train, so sat me on the floor of the train station to try and see if I came round a bit. One went to get water and so on. Another flagged down passing police men, who refused to help because I was drunk (which my friends told them I wasn’t)

Eventually they phoned me of their parents who came for us. Friends dad was actually a first aider who confirmed I wasn’t drunk, despite every other professional that night insisting I was.

Im pretty sure I was spiked with something - I was drinking water in the club.

A child at one of our schools many years ago ended up in hospital at roughly that age having drunk too much and had her stomach pumped . She had been found unconscious and I assume they didn’t know if she had taken anything other than alcohol.
She made a mistake , which lets be honest lots of young people do with alcohol at some time. I hope she ended up on the childrens ward , as she was a child and obviously vulnerable at that time . Children come in all shapes and sizes with all kinds of issues , we don’t get to pick and choose which child deserves to be in the appropriate ward .

(Sober) Dh has been in A&E on a Saturday night surrounded by drunk adult men, it is no place for a vulnerable 15 year old child.

You obviously only have a toddler, and feel protective of them. you will feel very different when they are 15 and if they get into the same situation!