To think school should have remembered

[fluffyheadband]

My DS (5) is on antibiotics this week following a small emergency procedure at the weekend. He was back at school yesterday and needed to take his antibiotics at lunchtime. I signed the form to allow the teacher to administer this and informed them it’s to be kept in the fridge and then returned at home time as he needed to take it again after dinner.

i brought it back in this morning and confirmed same drill today and also reminded them I won’t be there at pick up as he’s collected by childminder on a Thursday.

He’s come home without the antibiotics and is sure he hasn’t had any since breakfast, I did ask him if he reminded the teacher and he said he didn’t. Of course he could be mistaken and has forgotten his lunch time dose but it still means he misses his evening one today.

I will be going in to school a couple of minutes early tomorrow to make sure he has it in the morning.

AIBU to think that school should not have forgotten about the medication, both administering at lunch and to pack it in his bag at home time. I did say I could pop in at lunch if necessary but they said there was no issues as long as the form had been filled in.

Personally I’d have kept them off rather than put the responsibility on the teacher and/or childminder assuming it was a 5 day course of antibiotics rather than 3 weeks

Lots of schools will only administer medicine if it's 4+ doses a day - if it's 3 that's 8 hourly so can be done at home.

AIBU to think that school should not have forgotten about the medication, both administering at lunch and to pack it in his bag at home time.

AIBU to think that it was the parents' responsibility (or for them to ask whoever is collecting the child) to go to the office and collect this very important medicine?

No school I've worked in would get a bottle of antibiotics and 'pack it in his bag' at the end of the day. That's for the parents to collect from the office.

At my school parents would take it to our welfare officer, not a teacher. It's her job to make sure these kinds of things are looked after and administered. You have to have the box / bottle with the prescription label on it for school to be allowed to give the meds to a child.

whoever is collecting the child has to get the medicine off the office so cm fault

and who do you propose looks after him? the flower fairies?
OP has most likely had to take time off work to deal with this emergencies. Employers are only lenient to a point (whether like that or not). What if she is SE? Or a single parent. If he is well enough to be in, even if it's not ideal, he should be in.

@IneedtheeohIneedtheeeveryhourIneedthee
thats not really the school or the childminders problem though if the parent can’t get further time off. Any adult knows how shit they can feel on antibiotics so it’s grossly unfair to send a child to school whilst still recovering and expect teachers and childminders to administer mediation.

(I am a lone parent BTW with a child who was severely ill and required weeks at home so I get how difficult juggling work and kids can be)

As someone else has said, that’s not the school’s problem.

I had surgery recently and even though I was probably well enough to be in work, I didn’t go in because I knew I couldn’t cope and would be risking major infections. I doubt a child is well enough, 5-6 days after emergency surgery, to be in school full time.

So what did the school say when you woke to them on Friday?

Just decant what’s needed into a small bottle and he can take that in, keep the main bottle at home

No school or childminder is going to accept medicine in a random bottle without pharmacy labels.

Where I work it is the office staff or the TAs who accompany the child to the office who might help administer the medication. The office staff however are amazing and set timers so they know when a child is due their medication and will phone across to the classroom if a teacher has not yet sent the child over so there is no possibility it can be forgotten. I would check with your school first before accusing them of not giving the medication at lunch.

We would not pack the medicine in the child's bag and all medication needs to be handed to an adult. Therefore it was your responsibility to collect or to ensure the childminder was aware they needed to go to the office to do this.
I am surprised schools will just put medication in bag as there is the possibility of someone removing it.

Yes.

We only administer medication during school time that needs to be taken 4 times a day or at certain timings like insulin or epilepsy drugs.

No, they shouldn't have forgotten, but they are human and mistakes happen.

Mistakes happen. DCs school has a matron on staff so never any issue with doses being administered at school but when DD7 was on antibiotics last winter still she came out without it a couple of times because she’d forgotten to go to matron’s office to collect it. I know her well enough to check her bag before we leave school grounds so can send her back in for it if necessary. So I think that’s on the childminder tbh. And also if it’s 3 times a day and DC isn’t doing a long day with clubs then probably easier not to send it into school at all and do a dose straight after school then again at bedtime.

This is too much to expect a school to do I think. They are there for education. If memory serves, I would just do the 3 doses at home as far apart as I could. Or ask if I could pop in at lunch time to do it myself. Absolutely the carer on pick ups responsibility to get it, not the school.

Last time ds had to have antibiotics I asked the gp to prescribe it in two bottles one for home and one for school. I actually ended up with 3 bottles when I collected from the pharmacy.

Any school my daughters attended in Ireland were not allowed give out meds at all except staff trained in administering EpiPens.

I'm a TA and all medication goes through the school office, the parent hands it in, signs the form, someone from the office will come and give the child the medication at the requested time, and then the parent collects the remaining medication from the office at pick up. I would assume this would be the case in most schools, as it would be massively unsafe to have any types of medication in bags or classrooms, or expect the teacher to remember its in there along with everything else they have to remember....don't get me started on how much time is wasted looking for jumpers that don't have bloody names on! I mean, its not like anyone else in the class will have the same one is it?!