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?

My Spanish relations use the pharmacy a lot. Does she know that they can do that.in the UK too.They do tend to medicalise things that we don't though and it's the same in France
I don't think it's particularly helpful to be honest

There is too much healthcare being used to very little improved health.

Most of our fears have been created by scare stories in the media - most of our conditions are short term and can be cured without needing outside help - just sleep, warmth and fluids.

“Modern medicine is a negation of health. It isn't organized to serve human health, but only itself, as an institution. It makes more people sick than it heals.”
― Ivan Illich

I’ve lived in six different countries and the UK is an outlier, worst healthcare I’ve had by far. Not being able to get same day GP appointments or being offered online appointments is ridiculous and not something I’ve seen elsewhere having lived in the US, Asia, Europe and Africa. The waste and bureaucracy is off the scale. GPs either dismiss concerns or refuse to make a diagnosis- I’ve been sent to A&E with my kids before for what turned out to be hand foot and mouth, which any GP should be able to diagnose. Don’t get me wrong some people are definitely just hypochondriacs and should be charged for appointments/rocking up unnecessarily to A&E but when it comes to kids where do you draw the line? I’m in favour of privatising the NHS and in any event I use a private paediatrician for my children after multiple unsatisfactory experiences with the local GP surgery but I can also understand why people overuse A&E given the frustration of trying to get an appointment, being redirected left right and centre, spending hours on 111 and waiting for a call back etc. It probably is quicker to show up to A&E and wait.

Trouble is we don't have enough radiographers and biomedical scientists trained in diagnostics to interpret the scans and blood tests quickly enough.
Often the minor injuries near me is shut, not because it lacks the equipment, but there is no radiographer. It's about time the government invested in high quality apprenticeships in these areas to speed up the diagnostic part and promoted this as a career.
Similarly with phlebotomists and other scientists who could interpret such data.

These things would seem a bit silly on principle, but there are too many stories of GPs brushing off issues even if she did take her kid to the GP first.

There is another live thread about a mum who was brushed off and now her 1 year old is staying in hospital while they need to do bloods etc.

Our GPs have been bad with my kids.

-Improper eczema treatment due to telephone appts
-Brushing off breathing issue when surgery was needed
-Planning to precribe medication even I knew had been banned in the UK

I agree with everyone who's said it's cultural. My ex was Spanish, and he was so used to being able to see a doctor at short notice and get prescribed things like antibiotics with ease that it was a real culture shock, and it took him a while to adjust.

It also sounds like she might have some health anxiety or something going on.

I would talk to her about it.

Often with these threads I think there are underlying health conditions that the OP doesn't know about. But an ambulance for a graze?? This lady sounds like very hard work. What do other people say when she tells these stories? Surely people must tell her she can't call an ambulance for a graze or go to A&E for hurty legs. I would really struggle to hold my tongue with these stories and would probably distance myself.
That said, I have a Spanish friend who will go back to Spain for medical conditions e.g. an operation after a broken bone and will say the NHS is very slow and useless. So maybe it's normal in Spain to overreact to everything? But the British husband should be embarrassed

I think some urgent treatment centres are like this. I did a first aid course recently and the tutor said the one local to me has an Xray department and paediatrician available during the day

I'm sure she would be able to have that kind of 'support' if she was willing to pay for it. There's an assumption in the UK that parents are not entirely useless. If there was a charge for A and E going for ridiculous things might be reduced.

Interestingly where I live (UK) I've never had to wait more then a couple of hours in A&E. Usually much less.

We've also got a walk in GP on a different site that's open evenings until 10pm and at weekends. So there's no need to go to A&E because you can't see a GP. Though I've always been able to get same day at the GP anyway.

There should be more set ups like this as it works brilliantly.

The NHS isn't all bad. When it's needed to be for us it's been lightening quick.

My Singaporean SiL was appalled to find that U.K. GPs don’t prescribe ABs for every cough and cold. She had ABs sent by courier to her teen dd at boarding school in the U.K., when the dd had a cold - admittedly quite a bad one.

I get the cultural differences but surely anyone can treat a grazed knee at home? Are Spanish drs really having their time taken up by things like that?

I do think there are big cultural differences between a lot of countries though. I remember a new housemate of mine, recently arrived from South Korea. She had a cold and asked me how to book at appointment with an ENT dr at the hospital. I wouldn’t normally be nosy about people’s health but she was new to the country and asking about a hospital dr so I asked if she had any other conditions that made colds/viruses dangerous, just to see whether maybe we needed to go to A&E or something to get her seen. She didn’t, she just had the expectation that she’d see a specialist ENT dr for a cold. She was fine two days later. I think that’s an example of the pendulum going too far the other way tbh.

My GP practice has an Open Surgery for an hour each morning (2 hours on a Monday) where you can just turn up and be seen for acute conditions. It’s brilliant.

I’d be mortified turning up at A&E for those things.

Yep, kids 14 and under are seen by pediatricians...

Cultural differences is definitely an element here. In North Western Europe (the Netherlands, but I should think Germany, Scandinavia, Belgium too) you wouldn't take your child to A&E for any of that, GP for some of it. You also wouldn't post it on socials. No antibiotics for viruses either because evidence. HOWEVER, you would get a same day/out of hours GP appt and results of various tests very easily. And all the healthcare is connected and joined up, without a million apps.

Eastern Europe is different (all private and relatively cheap), Southern Europe is different again.

What are you gaining from bitching about this mum on a public forum? Ultimately it's her kid and her decision. It doesn't sound like there's any safeguarding concerns eg Munchausuens so I'm not sure why you're so invested. It's really up to the trained clinicians to tell her if she's overreacting not a 'friend' who only gets half the story.... and I say this as a trained clinician. If you feel like she's being a drama llama then just don't feed the drama llama.

When the 5p plastic bag tax was brought in people stopped taking them overnight.
A nominal charge would stop this kind of abuse of the NHS by these entitled time wasters..

It wouldn't stop people with money from going but it would stop people with little money who need help from getting help.

Which is why I would never support a charge at the point of entry.

I would suggest a basic first aid course for her. Say its a shame to waste the day at the drs because she can't put a plaster on her own child.

Also I'd point out how useful the pharmacy can be and that for all of her issues she could probably have gone there.

She'll sounds annoying. I've got a friend who took her 6yr old to the GP 3 times in one week for a virus. Kid was well enough for playdates through the week though, we saw her twice in that time!

@Shakeyourwammyfannyfunkysong

Actually repeatedly taking your child to A&E for things that are no serious is a safeguarding concern.

If you take your child to a hospital it means that they are likely to do tests purely to reassure you, not because they are clinically necessary but because there is a massive fear of litigation and many junior doctors lack confidence in their assessment skills.

The child pays for their parent's anxiety in their pain and traumatic damage done by tests . If this happens repeatedly the harm increases.

It's not called Munchausens any more by the way - it's fabricated induced illness

I don't know how she got an ambulance to come out!

My very elderly neighbour was really ill a couple of weeks ago and the ambulance took 4 hours.

I had pneumonia last winter and was very unwell, I called for an ambulance and they said it would be four hours.

So I got an uber 😂 BUT that made me think, if I'm able to get to the taxi, work the app and stay alive for the journey then I should have expected to get an uber in the first place.

However, my elderly neighbour was absolutely too ill to do any of that.

And it is our business.

The NHS is publicly funded - we are all paying for these people who are misusing it.

In addition to the wasted money is the more serious issue that when the A&E is full of people who have no good reason to be there - they still have to be assessed to check this and this reduces the time for the people who are seriously sick, who it is harder to see in the masses and who are more likely to wait longer because of the others.

We see it across our society - those who have serious conditions/ needs are not having those needs met because those with lesser needs are noisily demanding time and resources that they should not have.

This and lots of other comments on this thread seem to assume it's inherently better for a child to see a paediatrician. But Spain's child mortality rate is very similar, but slightly worse than the UKs - so is it?

@Dogaredabomb She would have got the ambulance to come out because she would have lied and over-exaggerated the sickness of the child in relation to the questions she was asked.

It is very very common. People lie all the time to get what they want.

They never seem to consider that they are allowing other people to suffer and perhaps die when they do this.