MIL injured my dd and would not take her to hospital

[Almondmist]

This is eating me up inside as I can't talk about this with anyone else, please help me decide what to do. Last year I went to visit my in-laws with my dds, my dh didn't go due to work commitments. My in-laws are nice people but also small minded. They live abroad in a small town and I can have a basic conversation with them in thier language. One night Dd2 slept with me and dd1 (4) slept with my mil. I have always used a bed guard with my dds abroad and my in-laws know this very well. It's a stone floor. In the middle of the night, dd1 woke up and came to me because she had a bad dream. I comforted her and my mil took her back to bed. 1 hour later I heard a thud and dd1 screaming. I ran into the room to see dd1 on the floor, her chin split open dripping blood. She had not been put on the side of the bed where the bed guard was in place, but on the other side where my mil should have been sleeping. The cut was an inch wide. I panicked and told my fil to take us to the hospital while my ignorant mil got a wet tissue to dab at the wound. My fil didn't take us to the hospital but a tiny medical centre, which was a tiny room with a guy claiming he was a nurse. He put a plaster on and that's all. I only have a beginner level knowledge of the local language and I said she needs stitches but the guy said no need it's enough. My dd bled for around four days, I begged my in-laws to take her to a hospital but they would look a me with a blank stare like they didn't understand me. I called my dh on the phone to translate to them but my fil refused and took her again to the same medical centre who only changed the plaster. I said to please call a taxi and I would pay for it but they said there are no taxis in the area. There is a hospital 20 mins drive away. I felt so lost and helpless. I cried so much. Its healed but there is a noticible scar left which, given the size, will remain. I was never given an apology for what happened and was told 'its just thier mentality'.
This time when I visited my in-laws with my dh, my mil notice the scar and said my dd should have got stitches. I saw red in that moment and screamed why she didn't do anything at the time and take dd to the hospital like I had begged.
I know what happened wasn't intentional but it was neglect and I am expected to carry on like nothing happened. But I can't let it go, I never want to see my in-laws again or leave take my dds there to meet them, I never enjoyed going I only did it for my dh. Soon the yearly subject will come up of booking the plane tickets and i want to tell dh no this time. I get so much anxiety and stressed out at the thought of going back there. I'm civil with my inlaws but i hate them since that incident. What would you do in my situation?

And you buy that? Sounds like she didn’t even try. I find it very hard to believe that anyone could be in a first world country in 2023 and over a period of four days not be able to organise transportation to a hospital twenty minutes away.

I think I said it yesterday but I was travelling around China solo twenty years ago and managed to get myself treated when I injured myself. And I don’t speak any Chinese language, didn’t find anyone that spoke English, it was pre smartphones and wifi, but I still managed.

Read her post again!

Soon the yearly subject will come up of booking the plane tickets and i want to tell dh no this time. I get so much anxiety and stressed out at the thought of going back there.

You need to deal with your anger before you have the conversation about tickets with your DH. If you have half a years worth of resentment built up that chat is not going to end well. Maybe tell your DH how you are feeling now and ask for some time to process that before you chat again about booking tickets.

OP this is really an absurd overreaction.

Your MIL did not injure your child.

Your child was seen by a medical professional at a medical centre. Twice.

Many posters on here have explained that facial lacs are rarely sutured.

You appear to have sat about crying for 4 days instead of sorting this out yourself or getting your DH to assist.

Your PIL have done nothing wrong.

@coffeeaddict77 I just absolutely do not buy that in a "small town" (which was what she said it was, not rural) there is no taxi, or no taxi could be called to come from the larger town 30 minutes away. I live in a village of less than 1000 people (not in Italy but in another European country) and there are at least three taxi drivers, who everyone knows how to get hold of. In the place I go on holiday (Eastern European country, less developed than Italy) I stay in a village of about 200 people and everyone there knows who to call for a taxi.

Her in laws said there were no taxis in the local area. Her DH presumably didn't say otherwise when she spoke to him. As other's have said, he could have told the name and number of one or spoke to them himself. Maybe they all lied though.

She said her in laws said there were no taxis locally. As you say, you don't need to speak the language to get one anyway. The medical centre should have done a good enough job anyway so this nothing to do with not speaking Italian.

OP has made an effort. She speaks enough Italian to have a basic conversation with her in laws.

I know that, but if you're going to take two small children overseas on your own, and not to an English speaking resort or hotel, you also need to have the knowledge or ability to get yourself some help in an emergency.

As you would expect any partner who was serious enough to marry you to learn your parent's language I presume you would expect your parents to learn to speak your partners language fluently too?

I would absolutely expect them to make a similar effort. Luckily we're a very mixed family with lots of languages and cultures so they don't see it as some ludicrously high bar.

If I was really desperate to get my child seen at a hospital, even though the child had already been seen twice at a medical centre, I would have made the effort to find out about taxis myself instead of sitting around crying for four days and believing ridiculously that in the whole of a "small town", which is 30 minutes from a large town, there was absolutely no way of sourcing any kind of transportation. I think she really wants to "hate" the in-laws, for whatever reason, and this silly episode provides an excuse.

@DuckbilledSplatterPuff on what basis do you say that the medical facilities were "inadequate"? Because the room the child was examined in was small? I don't see any other evidence being mentioned (apart from the idea that the medical professional was someone masquerading as a nurse, which is very strange). Again, this smacks of xenophobia, assuming that because it's not in the UK it must be "inadequate" and that the nurse must be a fraud.

I would not stay with the in laws again and I wouldn’t return to that area of Italy without DH while your DC are small. It doesn’t sound like it’s a comfortable place to stay if sharing small beds is necessary with children. Could you, DH and DC all stay in a hotel in a bigger town with better facilities and just travel to visit his parents as a compromise?

I would also have seen red at the comment about DD needing stitches when they were the ones who refused to take her to hospital!

Just because people in your family speak a lot of languages that doesn't mean it is a really easy thing for adults to do. Different people have different aptitudes and it also depends on how much they were exposed to other languages as children, and how much other languages are taught in school.

I didn't say anything about it being easy, did I?

I have no idea where the health facility was or the size of the room.

Just that the OP said it was remote and she had no transport and implied that it was the only place in the location the PILS were willing to take her DD.

The OP implied the facility was inadequate for the situation as she said they stuck a plaster on and her daughter needed stitches and the wound was bleeding regularly so they had to go back. The OP implied that her daughter had not received sufficient treatment.

I was NOT being Xenopobic.

Nor did I say that the nurse must be a fraud! Please do not misquote me or willfully misinterpret what I have said.

I presume you think it is if you think OP should become fluent in order to speak to her in laws once a year. How many hours of study do you think that would take a person with an average aptitude for learning languages?

@DuckbilledSplatterPuff The OP made the comments that the room was small and the nurse may have been a fraud, which are very strange things to say and to me indicate a denigratory attitude. I thought that must be where you are getting your statement from that the facility was inadequate. As many PP have pointed out, not stitching a facial wound in small child is quite standard and not a reason at all to assume that the facility was "inadequate". We cannot know if it was or not, to just state that was inadequate without knowing seems xenophobic to me.

The OP seemed to feel the treatment was inadequate as she wanted stitches. I am not in a position to judge if she was correct or not.
I am not being Xenophobic
You are just looking for an argument and I will not entertain that.
I am leaving this thread and reporting you.

You said "the facilities are inadequate". That was not something you could know from the available information, so you must have been extrapolating this from somewhere. That's all I meant.

I never said anything about the OP becoming fluent

In fact, I didn't even mention the word!

She said she can have a basic conversation aleady but you seemed to think that wasn't good enough.

That doesn't mean I expect her to be fluent, lol.

You're just making things up and then arguing about it

Some of these comments are brutal and unnecessary.

I completely understand your anxieties but I would suggest finding a way of working around them so as not to break down any relationships.

From my perspective, I would flat out refuse to go unless my DH came with us.
Perhaps you could, via your DH, find a way to let them know how you are feeling and that you have certain boundaries should either of your DD's become injured/sick in their country going forward.

You have been frightened out of your wits and it's completely natural to never want to return, but I do think it is something, with compromise, that you could overcome without point blank refusing to ever return.

Okay, you think she should be able to have more than a basic conversation in Italian but not fluent. How many hours of study do you think it would take the average uk person to achieve the competency you think appropriate.

I didn't say anything about hours of study, either What I did say is that if OP can't speak the language well enough to get help in an emergency, then she needs to have a guide book or similar to use just in case.

If you're going to take children on holiday to a foreign country, you need to know how to access help. If you can't speak the language and won't be staying in an AI resort (or similar) then that means having apps on your phone or a guide book you can use.

You just seem to want an argument with anyone who thinks the OP overreacted for some reason.

Suggesting she needs a language level that would include "hello, taxi company, please can I get a taxi from xx to the hospital" (which she doesn't, so her level of "basic conversation" must be pretty basic) is not suggesting she needs to be "completely fluent". And I still cannot understand why she has not learned a little bit more Italian than that in five years. It just seems rude to me. Even when I visit a country where I don't have in-laws etc, I brush up on some basic language just out of politeness (and interest). Even in places like China or Vietnam where it is really hard. And definitely always some emergency phrases in case of just this situation. She is part of an Italian family for heaven's sake! Why the resistance?

I remember in the days before Google Translate what fun it was to get the phrase book and memorise some of the odder phrases and funny local idioms alongside the more essential ones. It added to the fun of the trip. There seems to be a real animosity in this thread to getting a bit of another language.