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?

My late MIL's second husband was Italian. They left England to live in rural Tuscany.
She was always full of praise for these "Medical centres" where they did all sorts of tests and treatments that would normally involve a trip to the hospital in the UK.

You are all a bunch of witches. No wonder OP hasn't come back.

Exactly!

Bloody wish the UK followed suit!

Not sure what OP thinks a hospital would've five differently, just because we have hospitals in the UK, does not mean they are better equipped than an Italian Medical Centre.

If it is any comfort I doubt A&E would have done better scar wise. If you want to avoid scars you need plastic surgeon rather than A&E who will.just patch up as best they can but have limited skill in scars free repairs.
It may be in this country A&E is not the same as UK and in any case minor injuries unit here would be perfectly appropriate. Overall there seems to be lack of communication here as I don't understand why they didn't explain to you what options you had. I also can't get my head around 4 days of bleeding profusely and doing nothing.futher ?
It all.seems rather odd and like you have a broken relationship with them

Much as it's common for posters to disappear when a thread doesn't go their way, she last posted at midnight and it's now 7am. I don't think we can say she's been run out of town just yet

Maybe she's been sleeping from midnight until now?

We can all learn a lesson here: if travelling to a rural destination, do some research - if anybody needed emergency medical attention, do I know the emergency phone number, do I know where the nearest hospital is, do a have a taxi number saved on my phone or an idea of transport, can I say that I need a hospital in the local language?

I'm genuinely not trying to be patronising; I will now be doing this before I go abroad in the future.

it might, probably would. Have scared anyway,
You explained this like you asked (begged) permission to go to the hospital. You should have just called a taxi.

However, mil and fil do not share your parental views and concerns and for that reason I could not trust them again.
They are your dh parents which complicates things, he needs to manage family relations to keep the peace if that is your wish.
YANU to hold a lifetime grudge against them though.
As a child, I’m 51 now, with a still visible scar on my face that happened under similar circumstances and I don’t think it’s anyone’s fault. It was an accident. Falling out for it is not worth it. You can work on being assertive around your in-laws in stead. No no no it’s your way not theirs in future.

Italy is generally considered to have a high quality provision of health care available with well qualified staff ( even if you are paying some contribution)Perhaps the HCP who saw DD didn't make it clear due to language issues why they felt the cut didn't need anything else doing.
As a few others have mentioned if stitches can be avoided in a 4 year old they should be. The local anaesthetic injections are painful and stitches certainly don't guarantee no scar. Most small facial cuts are held together with medical glue and steristrips.
It wouldn't have been significantly bleeding for four days though it sounds like it was oozing.
When one of my ds was 14 he fell off his bike and cut his chin open, I work in the local A&E. Ds refused to have it stitched and was considered to be competent to make this decision, it was glued. The scar gradually became less visible and now 12 years later cannot be seen. Remember faces grow but the scar won't.
I think you are letting your upset cloud your judgement a bit and would suggest you plan any future visits carefully. Take a good first aid kit, you can buy steristrips and get health insurance when abroad even if you are with family in Europe.

It sounds terrible OP, I wouldn’t hesitate to refuse any more solo visits. Your DH must be there to help you or it is not safe for you to go.

Well the way I see it your the mother and didn't look after your child, sorry but it's your responsibility to have them in a safe place to sleep not someonelse and ive been abroad with our 3 and on 2 occasions needed a hospital, didn't speak the language and managed to arrange a taxi no problem. Stop taking your anger out on what was essentially an accident and what should have been your responsibility.

Not safe?

Why didn’t you get her checked out as soon as you were home? Also, Italy is not that backwards! You could have got yourself to a hospital easily enough, what would you have done if on holiday by yourselves?

Fair enough that in the middle of the night it would have been hard to go without help from the in laws but the following morning you could have used Google Maps to locate the hospital and either located a cab or public transport - it's Italy not Timbuktu! Google translate is ok to get any phrases you need re transport.

My grandparents lived abroad and I saw them twice a year until the age of 11. I absolutely remembered them and had a very close relationship with my grandmother. Still have memories of falling asleep on my grandmother’s lap at the age of 3 (I know I was 3 because I remember being picked up at the airport. We took a train after I turned 4).

Biazarre that your MIL would comment that your daughter should have had stitches without being incredibly apologetic. Did she admit their part in not getting them?

For what it’s worth, your daughter’s face will grow and the scar won’t. Good advice from a PP on watching out/checking with a dentist on jaw alignment.

As other have said though, I wouldn’t be taking your children back there without DH and some means of transport you can use. This time there is no serious harm done, but next time you might not be so lucky.

If you have no choice, is it possible to find out the emergency number so you are prepared? Most times if you ring it, there will be someone with at least some English who can help, even in the middle of nowhere.

What's down is done so no point milling over it. It does sound like they handled it badly, there's no way I'd have refused a mother wanting to go to a hospital with their child, no matter how silly I thought it was.

But you do have choices.

You can choose to never see them again, your dh goes alone to see them.

You could go but stay in a hotel, in a more populated area and your mil and fil stay there too

Invite them to stay with you this year

Go low contact and speak to them over the phone / FaceTime.

I get that it must have been scary in a place with no taxi and limited language. You're getting a hard time here which I don't think is entirely justified

The wrong side of the bed thing is a really easy mistake to make and not something to be angry about in and of itself but the subsequent treat is appalling. I wouldn’t ever see them again either.

My daughter got a deep cut on her chin at about that age, we went to hospital and she gad stitches, she’s 22 now and still has a scar

Accidents happen. I would strongly urge you to learn Italian or any other European language as most Europeans can speak their own language and at least one other (even to the level of asking where the hospital is and can I have the bill please).
Also, you mention that your DD may have a scar for the rest of her life because of this incident, and I think that isn't necessarily true. You could investigate getting some cosmetic surgery to remove the scar, because I believe that every time you look at your DD, you see the same accident happening again and again and again and you can't get past it.
I'm not suggesting that you resume visits to your DH's parents but I do think you need to accept even a portion of culpability because during the 3 or 4 days after the accident happened, you didn't approach any taxi drivers or by the sounds of it anyone to ask for their help for your daughter, you didn't even phone your DH from the town/village and hand your phone to another person so that they could converse in Italian and understand what you needed. You also didn't even phone 112 from a landline which is the emergency number for ambulance/fire/police.
I don't want to pile on as I can genuinely understand how distressed you were at the time but it's not just MiL who injured your DD, it was FiL and it was to a degree you as well.
Why didn't you bring your DD to your GP or to hospital in the UK on your return? There were plenty of opportunities to improve this situation but I would strongly urge you to not cut these in-laws off but to definitely stay elsewhere when you do visit.
I don't know who your inlaws are but I can only imagine that they are eating themselves up at the possibility that they have permanently scarred their granddaughter.
Everyone makes mistakes.

I find the OP quite xenophobic in their attitude. Why was taking the child to a medical centre (twice) not good enough for her? Is it because it was in Italy? Why call the MIL "ignorant" for using a tissue to stem the bleeding? Why question whether the staff at the medical centre was really a nurse, would you do that about someone who claimed to be a nurse in a GP's office in the UK? And if you really thought you needed a hospital after being told by the nurse that you didn't (he presumably knew what the hospital would or would not do) why didn't you find a way to go there yourself in the four days, you are the child's parent and you also had recourse to your DH on the phone. You say it is a small town, not a rural area. They must be some form of transportation. I holiday in a rural area in a less developed country than Italy and there are plenty of taxis (and I make sure I have a taxi number at all times, if my car is not with me).

And we don't know the tone in which the MIL later said that she thought the child had needed stitches, maybe it was with regret "oh, in fact looking back I think she should have had stitches". She presumably feels guilty about the accident.

Your title is a little unfair here, your MIL didn’t injure your daughter. Your daughter fell out of bed.

These things happen and you will never know if the stitches will have made the scar better or worse.

it sounds as if your MIL is upset that they didn’t make a different choice at the time which is why she is mentioning it.

are you going to stop your daughter from seeing yourself when you make a bad decision?

life is too short , just let it go

Don't go again, and advocate for your child

Also, if you are married to an Italian and regularly travel to Italy, learn to speak some Italian for goodness sake. Why haven't you?