School forgot to give medication

[Popsicle82646]

Daughter comes home from school and says that they forgot to give her her dose of antibiotics today at school.

When dad collected the teacher said oh I'm sorry, and turned to my daughter and said 'Did you remind any of the staff today to give it to you?'

Now I'm a pretty chill mum, and whilst not the end of the world as she's had the second dose when she got home, It's kind of not the point.

AIBU for being annoyed they turned the blame to my child asking if she reminded them (7 yo)?!

I'm inclined to just leave it but part of me wonders if that had been a diabetes medication for example that had been forgotten it might have been different outcome.

WWYD?

If it help from this point forward we are often on 4 x a day antibiotics and our hospital are pretty strict that they have be spread apart - 6 hourly with a max of 1 hour difference other way off needed.

so I would usually do 9 am - 3.30 pm when I collect from school then then 9.30 pm and 3 am.

So if they had the first dose before school and then say second when she gets home at 4pm ish when am I supposed to safely fit in 2 more doses before bed time??

This is why, if I was the Emperor of the Universe, I would make it the law that if you want children, you must spend a year teaching 4-11 year olds! Some days it’s like trying to stuff fog in a bag (and that’s just the admin)!

It is not the responsibility of the school to ensure antibiotics are given to a child at lunch time. Likewise, it is unreasonable to suggest a 7 year old should remind a staff member to be given their medication.

It isn’t equivalent to giving a child insulin/epi pens. They will have particular members of staff who are then trained to give these meds, or, in the case of the diabetic children I’ve taught (before CHMs and pumps), there was training & a medical health plan (still happens today reading current teacher posts). Sometimes, a parent would go to the school, take the glucose reading, calculate dose, administer & wander off to pick up later. With epi pens, they’re not all the same, so the staff member would have to be instructed on each and every brand they had to keep & possibly use at school.

There is no longer anything like a School Nurse that lurks in a broom cupboard with a camp bed and a box of plasters. Most staff multitask & are incredibly busy. What you deem to be a Very Important Thing is not what the staff would consider to be a Very Important Thing.

And that’s without the ballache if the antibiotics need refrigeration!

If you want the child to have a dose at lunchtime, the best course of action is to get someone to deliver the meds to the school at lunch, go to the office, get the staff to find the child, administer the antibiotics, and take the bottle home so that they can have their after school dose as usual.

Or give a dose at breakfast, after school, at bed time and set an alarm for a night time dose (wake, pop dose in, tuck back in to sleep). It’s only for a few days after all.

The only unreasonable one isn’t the child, or the teacher. It’s wholly the parent’s responsibility to make sure a child has their antibiotics. Or does their homework, or spellings, or reading, or toilet training or…

And that’s also why so many teachers leave the profession (and I left before there were sites like Mumsnet where parents could write a character assassination because the universe fails to revolve around their Perfect First Born).

There should be a policy on the school website stating who is responsible for administering it and the process. So in my children's school it is the school office staff and 2 adults have to be there for it. I was often the other adult as I would take the child from class to the office and I would initial the sheet to say it had been administered. This was a large primary with a very well run school office especially when it came to medications and children's health.

When the office staff take in a form they put an alert in the calendar for the teacher whose class the child is in and it flashes up on their screen that X child is to come to the school office. This also comes with an alarm sound in case the teacher isn't looking directly at their laptop. All classrooms have smartboards and the laptops are always on. The alert also appears on the smartboard. There is often a queue of children waiting to be dosed.

With something like insulin there is usually a one to one TA with that child to monitor, even when they have a pump. They get to know the child well and can look for any behaviour which may indicate their blood sugars need checking.

If you can work it so that school don't have to administer medicines then all the better but if they do need to, look up their medicine policy.

I wish I'd known how relaxed people were about giving medication when this was part of my role as I found it stressful. I worked quite hard to ensure the medicine was stored right, we had written consent, we kept records that it was given and set up a reminder system that worked pretty well after a few errors

Humans do make errors and any system relying on people has gaps. But it would be nice for op to know if there was a procedure and if it can be improved. Ours was improved

It wasn’t medication for diabetes so that argument doesn’t work. The seriousness of diabetes would make it memorable. Routine antibiotics just don’t have the same effect.

It’s not that big a deal, I wouldn’t make a fuss about it in case the next time you want them to do you a favour by giving meds, they say no. It’s no something they have to do.

@CentrifugalBumblePuppy I completely agree that parents should spend some time inside a school to see what "teaching" is because if it were only as simple as teaching then it would be a much easier gig

The teacher should have just admitted they forgot and apologised. I agree turning the responsibility back on your child would have annoyed me too. But then I have a child with SEN who definitely wouldn't remember, maybe some 7 year olds could.

Or right but I assumed if you were being very strict you would wake and administer . We had to do this a number of times.

Can you get a pass if you are a volunteer leader with a youth group?

I've taken my group to PGL with no fewer than 4 kids needing medication at various points of the day, some of which needed to be kept refrigerated. As anyone who has taken a group will know, PGL is hectic and your day and timings are dictated by the PGL staff and the activities. They got their medication when it was possible. The parents were grateful.

(Edit: sorry, that was in reply to @CentrifugalBumblePuppy )

The difference with regular medication is that its part of routine so it's harder to miss. My 4 year old has medication twice a day and knows when she has due it and reminds us if she has missed it. She's done this since 3!

For regular medication I think they would have a point and that the 7 year old should have reminded them but for short term medication I think it's less reasonable unless they were prewarned to ask about their antibiotics. Our school only gives 4 times a day medication and not 3 times a day so I don't think you are unreasonable to expect them to give them the antibiotics. Ideally my daughter would have one of her medications 3 times a day but this would involve her having it at school (it has to be given 30 minutes before meals rather than at set time points) and we don't want the added stress of managing and persuading them to give a 3 times a day medication and via syringe as they only permit spoons but her doses is 3.5ml and spoons are 2.5ml or 5ml.

How long do they have left on the antibiotics? Unless you have to continue on them next week I think I would let this lie. If they will need them next week, I would engage your daughter in the routine so she can ask for them at school

When mine were young, your child wasn't allowed in school on antibiotics, I can understand why, reading this.

But it wasent a diabetes medication it was a,dose of antibiotics, if your child was diabetic they would be in a routine and would know they have to take insulin with meals, and they would likely have a pump and a CGM ,so not really comparable.

Indeed, my son was diagnosed with Diabetes in year 11 he was perfectly capable of dealing. with himself but i still had to have a meeting with the head of pastoral care to discuss everything
He's in college now and we had to have a meeting before he started so theu could make reasonable adjustments if necessary vastly different to antibiotics

No big deal don't sweat the small stuff and forget about it. No harm done

All the nurseries / school my kid has been to had a clause in the contract that the school will not be administering medication. If the child strictly needs the medication the parents need to organise the kid to get it (ie keep the kid home, arrange for someone to go to the school at a non disruptive time etc). It wouldn’t occur to me to make the teacher responsible to be honest.
my doctor explained to me that as long as the kid gets the dose per 24 hrs, it’s all good and always spilt the dose in 2 * 12 hour doses vs 3 every 8 hrs or 4 every 6 hrs (we make a point to request it this way as it’s less disruptive)

The thing with comparing it to diabetes medicine (insulin) is that child will have a care plan.

They will have a designated person to administer daily and very likely they will remember to go to X.

Also with thing like diabetes their are schedule reminders - Eg lunch in a bit.

Random antibiotics won't be on the daily routine for either teacher or child.

Your child forgot she needed them and only has to think for herself.

Not saying it's ideal. But as someone who administers medication in a school I've not forgotten daily meds - have previously forgotten a dose of antibiotics. We don't usually have to administer them in school though as we only do the ones that are 4 times a day and usually they are 3 times.

I have previously put a post it on my desk and the child's to remind us which is foolproof until someone moves them!

This. Why have you left it to teachers who have to rely on your daughter reminding them? Just sort it out yourself

Four times a day course won’t fit in if only given outside school hours.

It's a bit defensive so I can see why the comment to your daughter would get your back up, but my 6yo would absolutely remind the teacher about their medication so equally I can see why the teacher would hope your daughter would remind her.

I've worked in schools, it's so easy to forget.

I'd let this go.

My colleagues and I refuse to give any medication at school entirely for this reason. No way am I taking responsibility for it. It was VERY unreasonable of you to expect school to administer it, you could easily have worked the times so it didn’t interfere with school.
How dare you compare it with school staff forgetting insulin. There will be alarms set by the teacher, child and admin staff for this and training will have had to be undertaken.

They shouldn't have forgotten and they shouldn't have placed any blame on your DD. She is 7 not 17.
I know it happens. My DD quite often had antibiotics to be given 4 times a day and they often forgot but remembered in the early afternoon. They had a TA who dealt with it though.
Are TAs really that rare? Every school we looked at last year had at least 1 TA per year group if not one for each class.
But in my DDs case they didn't blame her for not remembering. Adults have to take the majority of the blame here (I would say all the blame).
Perhaps they need to look at a better system. It can't be that unusual to have children on antibiotics in school. A better system, not one that relies on young children remembering.

You're really comparing the giving of an antibiotic to giving a life saving medication like insulin? Blimey.