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?

OP hasn't mentioned having no phone signal. Indeed, she rang her husband.

Why didn't you ask your DH in those 4 days of hysteria to speak to his dad?
Can you not drive? You could have found a way in 4 days to get her to a hospital.

She could ring her husband and ask him to sort.

One thing that makes no sense at all- if you can get a taxi from the airport to their house when you first arrived, then surely within a 4 day time period you can order a taxi to pick you up to take you to the hospital? Yes, your in laws seemed to play it down but why didnt YOU arrange this?- you could have rung your DH and asked him to order a taxi for you if you didnt speak the language.

Taxis must go out to your in laws house otherwise you wouldnt have been able to physically get there in the first place. You seem so angry with them but appear to have no taken any responsibility yourself for your own daughter. I get the language barrier- my in laws don't speak English but ultimately, your daughter is your responsibility, not theirs so it was up to you to take action if you were so concerned.

How did you get to the airport for the return flight if you couldn't get a taxi???? There are so many holes in this account that something is very, very off here

I really don’t get this at all. Stop blaming your MIL, you are the parent, you had a phone, I am sure you would have a found a way to get YOUR DC to a hospital. You had a few days.

On a side note I hope your DC have dual citizenship or are insured when you travel to Italy.

i think you are rightly or wrongly blaming your in-laws for everything but I wouldn’t cut them off over a minor incident. They are rural people from a different culture and your DH should have also helped translate or send an ambulance/taxi to the house. I know he wasn’t there but sounds like you were in touch.

It was an accident, your mother in law didn't injure your daughter, the title of your thread suggests otherwise. I completely understand it's stressful when kids are hurt but you do need to equip yourself with a bit more resilience than crying and begging for days. Now you know the logistical challenges of the region, have you ensured you have means to take your kids to a doctor if they are ill or injured again whilst visiting?

Is anyone else wildly impressed that a small Italian town has an all-night medical centre? Here in my small English town, you'd have to get the 20 miles to our nearest hospital (and there are no taxis).

If you made it, you'd be waiting for hours in A&E instead of having the wound fixed up locally and being back in bed!

As someone who lives in southern Italy, let me tell you.. THERE ARE NO TAXIS. It sounds like ops inlaws went to the guarda medica, who are fully qualified doctors and act as a rural alternative to a&e. In my experience they are amazing! If that same incident happened where we live, there's no way without a car you'd be going anywhere. Here, it's a long walk to the nearest neighbours, and our nearest shop is a half hour drive. Not everywhere is like the uk. It doesn't make it a backward country, just one with a different population density. You all sound incredibly entitled to think you can "just ring an uber".

Both of my DDs have split open their chins in accidents. Both times I have taken them to A+E. Both times they just had steri-strips applied. This is in the UK.
Just because a country may be small, it doesn’t mean their health care is any worse that that of a big country.

I think YAB a bit U to say that MIL injured DD. It was an accident. Perhaps a slight lapse in judgement but I think given that it was the middle of the night, this is somewhat understandable.

Fine, so how did OP get to the airport for the return flight then?

The title of the OP “MIL injured my DD” is completely misleading. You allowed them to cosleep. You accepted the risks. Your MIL didn’t push her out.

She was bleeding for FOUR DAYS and you accepted a plaster? You need to accept some of the responsibility here. You could have got up the next day, seen it was still bleeding and found a way to treatment.

i am wondering if the taxi issue is a red herring - if the child saw medical help twice - even if she had of been taken to a hospital it might not have meant she was given stitches?

I’m pretty certain a 2 year old and a 4 year old could share a single bed and you have the other one.

Hm, good point (I somehow missed that part).
southern Italy happens to be an area I am very familiar with (especially the countryside, that’s where my mother’s family is from).

I do still maintain my point that many users are being a bit too harsh on OP.
but yeah, OP could have walked to the next bus stop (there usually are some, even though timetables etc are sort of crappy) and taken her DD to a hospital.

Exactly. One of DC's friends had a very nasty fall at school with a large cut on their face. A&E referred them to plastics and said it would need to be closed in surgery to prevent scarring. Plastics took a look and said it was actually healing just fine and that the best thing to do was to just keep changing the dressing and let the body do its thing.

OP insists it needed to be stitched, but it seems the only person with medical training involved disagreed.

I would've thought a clinic is the right place to go for minor injuries like this.

Yes - OP was so sure she knew what treatment was needed, despite the doctor's disagreement, that she spent the next four days not managing to travel 20 miles to get a second opinion

The child was taken to a medical centre. Twice.

We are talking about Italy, not a developing country with no healthcare infrastructure. They are healthier and live significantly longer than we do in the UK and their healthcare system is in better shape than ours is right now. The nurse at the centre would have been fully qualified and would have sent them to the hospital if that’s what was needed. The ILs didn’t take her to a local herbalist… they took her to see a medical professional.

Yes, OP could have been more proactive in finding a way to get her to the hospital if she really wanted but there’s nothing to say they would have done anything different to the medical centre. OP, I think you need to forgive your ILs and yourself on this. Your daughter was not neglected. You sought medical treatment and there is no reason to think there would have been a different outcome if she’d gone to the hospital.

TBH your whole post is full of vitriol for people you say are kind to you!

Your title is not true, your child had an accident

You describe your in laws as small minded

You never liked visiting them

They took you to a medical centre, it was a small room? So what?

The guy "claimed" he was a nurse? What are you suggesting your ILs did? Took you in southern Italy to some sort of witch doctor?

You hate them

You begged and pleaded ... really?

The hospital moved from 20 minutes to 30 minutes and this remote rural area was known to the airport worker you relayed the story too?

Very dramatic "I can't talk to anyone else about this", why not? Not got friends you can discuss this with? You discussed it with your DH.

Everything seems very dramatic and over the top for a cut on the chin. As I said previously let your DH go and you stay home, although I'll hazard a guess you won't want to do that either. You won't trust them to look after your DCs.

Look your child is ok, can't change the little scar or what happened in the past. You are traumatised by it but would do things differently if it happened again.
Of course you can go there again, just stay in control as a mother, and be direct with them. Maybe hire a car so you can go where you need to. Probably I would only go when your DH can go too.
If you let DC go without you that's much worse

Was it a lapse in judgement? Do 4 year olds usually have bed guards? Genuine question, we've never used them, I thought they were for much younger kids who would typically be in a cot. I would've thought by 4 they just go in a normal bed, I don't blame MIL for thinking the same. Different if it was a one year old or something.

@PumpkinsAndCoconuts I don't think PPs are being harsh to OP, I think she's extremely unkind about her ILs and acting like they're vile people. See my post below, she's full of vitriol and innuendo, like the guy "said he was a nurse", where did she think she was if not in a medical centre, the local bar and in fact the guy was really a bar tender? Also, what's the problem with a small room?

Honestly!

^^ this and I'd be making it clear to DH that I didn't trust his parents to take appropriate care of the children

OP, I think you need to move on. You're clearly very cut up about this, but its not entirely your MILs fault.

You chose to let DD sleep in MILs bed. You didn't demand at the medical centre that she was taken to hospital - I'm sure they could have called you a cab. You didn't look at Google maps for public transport options, ask a local shop, a neighbour, phone your DH to do it for you etc etc. I don't believe there was no WiFi or phone signal at all - if you're only 30 mins from a hospital then you're not that far from civilisation.

It's a shitty thing to happen, but both your PIL and you could have done things differently. But you didn't - people make mistakes. Try and move past it.

if they would have helped a foreign woman

Lord have mercy, she was in Italy, a modern European country!