To be annoyed at friend for taking her kid to A&E so often

[sellotape12]

We live at the top of a road and at the end is our local hospital. I have a fairly new Mum friend from preschool. A big personality, (possibly her Spanish roots) and quite the drama queen. I feel myself getting very very mildly irritated because she literally takes her kid to A&E every single month.
In the past 2-3 months she and her husband have taken the kid to A&E for

• A fever. Hospital sent them home and said just use Calpol and get rest.
• A bad repetitive cough. She was sent home for bed rest
• A graze on her nose after she fell from a scooter. Could’ve been treated at home with basic first aid.
• “Pains in her leg”. A&E doctors said it was growing pains.
• fever from the injection site after having preschool jabs.

Each time we get the full story and I think she expects a flurry of attention. This isn’t a panic or anxious person who suffers from hypochondria. She treats the hospital as if it’s a walk-in GP clinic because of its proximity.

I’m pretty sure that in every single case she could’ve just googled it or used the helpful NHS website. I feel annoyed that she’s wasting the resources of actual urgent medical cases, but I don’t know if I’m being unreasonable in having this eye roll! How would you feel?

is it a cultural thing too? I know someone who's Spanish and they were horrified that their baby didn't get to see a specialist paediatrician for their baby checks, to the point where they flew to Spain to see someone near their parents!

Have you pointed out to her that none of these things are an emergency and she should be taking her child to the GP?

I wouldn't pay attention to it.

Yeah Europeans are used to actually being able to see doctors and don’t generally go with the British approach of you only get to want to see a doctor if you are on death’s door.

There is a huge cultural element to expectations in health care. Many Europeans, especially Eastern Europeans, have different culture norms which include prescriptions and ‘specialists’ for everything. For example, expecting antibiotics or ‘tonics’ for coughs and colds.

I agree with you, your friend sounds like she is wasting a&es time.

I haven’t mentioned it to her because I’m just not that kind of person. There’s always a selfie on Snapchat from the hospital waiting room that were expected to fawn over. And I just don’t like giving people unnecessary attention. She’s from a fairly wealthy family in Madrid (I think) and I think they were just used to having healthcare on the spot when they were growing up. I don’t know if she’s put two and two together that ours is a public health system and is under so many struggles. But the husband is British and never lived anywhere else and he’s all over it too. When the scooter thing happened, they literally called an ambulance. If it was me or if it had been my mum, we would’ve got out our really good first aid kit, some Calpol, a gauze pad maybe and had lots of cuddles.

My Spanish colleague who has recently had a baby was utterly baffled as to why each child does not have a specialist paediatrician assigned to them for help and support (as was the norm in the city she was born in). It's possible that she is alarmed that the level of support from the NHS is so poor so feels the only way to be seen is to use A&E.

Cant say I blame her, personally - people defend the NHS all the time but it really is quite a poor service. I nearly died of sepsis based on a crap experience with 111 so in future I'd bypass them completely with any concern with my children.

I mean surely she simply doesn't realise she doesn't need to wait around for upto 12 hours sitting on a horribly uncomfortable chair next to a load of gravely sick and injured people?

Why would anyone want to go there? It literally makes me sick. Just going there with someone else who needs it.

Explain to her that if it isn't an emergency then it's the GP or pharmacist you use. Which won't waste half a day and leave you exhausted.

It must be a cultural thing if she isn't one for health anxiety.

She is probably used to better healthcare. Many of my family members live abroad and they are absolutely shocked that we can't see a GP if we have missed the 8am appointment lottery deadline. They think we are neglectful if we don't get a child seen that is ill or injured.

Attention-seeking. If she had to pay every time she wouldn’t go

There’s always a selfie on Snapchat from the hospital waiting room that were expected to fawn over.

Who's 'we'? What makes you think there's an expectation you fawn? You sound like you barely know this person and she isn't actually a friend, so why are you looking at her Snapchat posts anyway? Just don't react?

It sounds a bit like you're jealous tbh that she's settled in and has friends/acquaintances already that are interested in her life. Leave it alone. People will soon clock that she's misusing services and I doubt the twentieth check in at A&E will get as much of a response as someone who posts one of those stories for the first time. Boy who cried wolf kinda thing.

I'd be irritated too, both by the unecessary use of resources and by the drama. I've literally never been to A&E in my life, either for myself or anyone else. We have two kids now in their 20s. I think DH took DS twice (I was at work!). Both times following a GP appointment that we were lucky to get quickly, but the GP then said they should go to hospital. Once was a small broken bone in his foot. The other was an alarming rash.

I have a friend like this. If her toddler has a temp for more than a couple of hours she’s straight in the hospital, she comes home raging when the child is inevitably sent straight back home. What’s weird is that she’s not only English, but she’s a nurse who comes from a family of nurses. She seems to know only issues directly related to her specialty and doesn’t have a clue about any other basic sort of healthcare, for eg she firmly believes that being cold will give a child a cold or flu.

You say she likes the drama, but clearly you do too.

She's not your friend as you dislike her, but keep her on Snapchat so you can have a little bitch about her.

If you simply remove her from all social media, then that's your problem solved, you don't have to witness it and you won't be able to tell if she's expecting you to fawn all over her.

A&E will soon tell her if they feel she's misusing the service.

I have a friend who does this. I asked her once why she didn't see the GP. She looked baffled and said, what can the GP do that the hospital can't...?

Absolutely this. We have such a weird attitude to healthcare in the UK. ‘Don’t bother the doctors’ sums it up.

I think some people are just total hypochondriacs.

I have a good friend who has many great qualities - but she or her children seem to be ill every week. Everyone’s temperature is constantly being analysed. Plans endlessly cancelled because someone has a cold. Always some ongoing hospital appointments for some issue they can’t find a solution to.

I can’t really take her seriously when she talks about anything illness related now.

The irony is though, that part of the reason that the NHS is in its current state is people abusing it! A&E for a scrape on the nose is an utter waste of time, leading to longer waiting times for everyone.

Hate to state the bleeding obvious but ‘Europeans’ are welcome to reside in a country that isn’t so awful as the U.K. We are stuck with it. They have choice.

Different cultural norms? a lot of the world go to the hospital for small things and you wait and see a dr there, because there’s an expectation of not having to wait 3 weeks and ring up at 8am to see one. it’s what I did in china, you get a ticket, you see the dr at the hospital fairly quickly.

Is she is enrolled at a GP surgery?
If not she needs to do so.

I live in a small village on the outskirts of a tourist area. We don't have a gp surgery in the village, nor do other surrounding villages so people use the local hospital as a walk in centre like your friend, along with the tourists. It's an absolute nightmare!

Perhaps cultural differences? In Spain maybe walk in medical centres are the norm so she doesn’t quite realise that A&E here is for emergencies.
Maybe next time ask her does she know she can call 111/her GP for things like this.

I think the NHS is shit. You can't get a gp apointment, a and e is an 8 hour wait.
For people used to being able to call up a dr and then just go and see the specialist you need in the space of 20 minutes, it must be a huge shock.
I have lived overseas in asia, middle east and europe and it is vastly different. No wonder she is confused.
I think healthcare should be fully privatised with a benefit to cover the insurance you can claim for if you can't afford it.

Hopefully once she gets a call from the health visitor/school nurse due to the number of A&E visits she’ll realise it’s not normal.

Oh come on you know how annoying these photos are.
I completely judge any twat that takes a photo of a child in hospital. It is done purely for the parent to get attention.