Was I unreasonable to call an ambulance / was it my fault.

[Sweetandsour11]

anbir of background : DD12 has a long standing medical history and has spent a lot of time in hospital. Although chronically ill she has done really well the last few years and avoided critical situations for a substantial time. We have a protocol that if she spikes a fever she has to attend A&E and be put on IVabs and bloods taken etc

on Sunday DD was fine her usual self and we had been out during the day. Nothing out of the character. Sunday evening she spiked a fever and as I always do I booked an uber to go to a&e which is around a 10 minute drive away.
DD started vomiting pretty severely and the uber refused to take her. I called 999 as she was rigouring vomiting a lot and was clearly not well at all. I explained to them about the situation and that she had an IV Hickman line in situ. They said that they would have to get a clinical person to call back who will then decided on clinical emergency.
40 minutes later they rang and sent an ambulance fast at this point.
when the paramedic arrived one of them seemed annoyed that they were sent to us. Kept repeating how close we were to the hospital but the issue is she couldn’t stand - he was soo rude and uninterested the entire time.
they took her obs and I knew they were bad. We were in the ambulance and the paramedic in the front asked the one in back if they do a pre alert to recuss and he said no.
he then said to me that “ when we have situations like this usually they would pre alert the hospital for recuss but because she was known there they will just turn up “
whrn we got there they just turned up with her in to normal treatment area. They know her but there wasn’t any indication given that she more poorly than previous times with a spiked fever as the paramedics didn’t do a pre alert and rolled her in to a normal cubicle asked the nurse who saw us if they knew her she said yes and they basically rushed off.
there was no indication she needed more help and it took a bit of time for it to be realised once in a&e. She deteriorated quite quickly and ended up in picu ventilated for 4 days.

surely the was the correct use of an ambulance ? 🥹

For people who struggle to get to appointments google community transport for your area. It's not for emergencies and eligibility varies but it may help.

No, this is how kids die. You need to complain. The next parent will be sat on This Morning talking about pushing through (insert child’s name) law to prevent it happening again.

there was a a few parts of that process that put your child at additional risk but the paramedics contempt towards you and the decision not to pre alert are up there.

YWNBU OP and I hope your DD is doing better now. For all those 'why didn't you drive' posters the NHS site literally has this warning under certain conditions/symptoms:
Do not drive to A&E. Ask someone to drive you or call 999 and ask for an ambulance.

Yup, and I live somewhere with decent-ish public transport compared to other areas in my county. (Also in the south east.)

I don’t know your daughter’s history but given she ended up in paediatric ICU it means she was very very ill. There is something seriously wrong with that ambulance officer.

I called an ambulance when I lived very close to the hospital. I had diarrhoea and vomiting.

Not once did they tell me I shouldn’t have called.

As it was I was back in hospital less than a week later requiring emergency surgery. There was actually something very wrong with me that was missed at the public hospital. This time I drove myself to a private hospital and required two separate surgeries.

Ambulance officers in my country are amazing. They don’t get paid enough for the work they do.