To be angry with this doctor

[annielouisa]

I am newbie so I hope its ok to post. I am really upset by a doctor at our out of hours emergency drop in clinic. My DD took my granddaughter to the clinic with a cough and vey high temp on Sunday. They barely examined her and said its a virus just give her calpol.

DD nursed her gave her calpol and tried to keep her fluids up. Yesterday the little one was no better and her breathing erratic so she took her to the GP who went ballistic and contacted the childrens ward and my DGD was admitted. She was tachichardic, Oxygen levels were below 80%, had a severe chest infection and a very high temp.

Today she is on oxygen has been diagnosed with atypical pneumonia and looks dreadful. She is a terrified little girl who is getting the treatment that should have started Sunday. She is only just 5 and surrounded by beeping machines. I was almost sick when my DD told me she was in HDU she usually such a bundle of fun.

Of course you can post!

YANBU to be angry, of course. But doctors are only human and do sometimes make mistakes, especially if they are at the end of a long shift at an out of hours clinic.

I hope your DGD gets better soon.

I would make a complaint I think but I suppose it is possible the infection was secondary to a virus.

Hope she's better soon

YANBU at all. Poor little girl.

Of course you are not being unreasonable! And when things have settled down, I hope that your DD, with the support of the GP, will make a formal complaint.

I hope your DGD recovers quickly.

Of course YANBU, but there was three days difference.

I took my daughter to docs re a cough & she had pneumonia

Children can deteriorate really quickly, what was obvious to the GP yesterday might not have been as clear on Sunday.

Hope that she is better soon.

My DH is making an appointment with our GP to look at complaining. We have no issues with our GP surgery they are first class. Thanks for all your kind messages I am off to see my DGD soon as we are a big family we are taking it in shifts.

Well it can come on quickly because of the virus. My DD was taken to A&E twice with breathing problems before they found she had pneumonia. which resulted in a week in hospital last year. Also it was a year of stupid doctors before a simple blood test told us DH had cancer. These things happen, doctors are only human.
We are very much if I am worried I will keep asking till we get answers now.

Hope your GD is doing better

YANBU hope DGD better soon

I am not sure if you are BU as I would agree with bigstripeytiger, but would add that I have also fallen foul of an out of hours doc making a very dangerous misdiagnosis which led to him being removed from the list of our out of hours provider. It was my GP who complained.
Medical complaints are nasty boggy affairs that can really suck your soul, for now focus on GD's recovery rather than blame.

Silver1 I agree with you all I really want is to hear my DGD making far too much noise and bossing everyone about. It is times like this when I feel helpless because she believes nanny can fix everthing.

So sorry

My own GP advised against going down the complaint route as it is physically and emotionally exhausting, but if you really are worried about the standard of care, then would your GD's GP take it up on your behalf?

But sympathies. DD (3) gets chest infections and deteriorates very quickly and looks surprisingly well when she isn't. So, now I know to ask for her oxygen levels to be taken if she doesn't see her own GP.

Lastly, and I'm not a doctor, but know from DD having chest infections and pneumonia (not at same time) but they can look very similar.

oh, poor wee mite - i can understand why you are angry, but the pneumonia is probably a secondary infection tbh. So sadly, the original advice was probably right. Not sure what you mean by the doc went ballistic though - hardly your DDs fault if she followed the advice he gave her, or the other doc gave her.

I tend to agree with ilovemydog - make a complaint if you feel its appropriate but i would leave it there, because they will just say what we have all said, three days is a long time in the scheme of things, if it had been the same night then i think you would have had more to complain about. I totally understand though.

Concentrate on getting that little girl better - i wish her a speedy recovery

oh, and welcome to mumsnet xx

Out of hours docs yes, surprise surprise,
my son--- kidney condition and nearly died
doc says just a sicky baby and said it was probably due the change from breast to formula. Nephewburst appendix diagnosis food poisoning take immodium. BF double pneumonia and -ear infetion go home and take 2 paracetomol. Husband pneumonia go home etc etc. All true these horrendous stories, they do not want to make serious diagnosis as costs more money and I am afraid some of these people work longer than they should and often are those who float around without a permanent seconment. If we have anything serious we go to AandE but if you are admitted at a weekend they can be short staffed. The rule of thumb with patients is now"wait and see" scans cost more money and cost cutting is key. Pneumonia is really common these days it is scary and not something we read in a Dickens novel. My nephew and BF are going down the sueing route
as they both have permanent complications.
Your GD willbe alright now they know what is wrong with her and she is young. someone had their baby misdiagnosed with tummy trouble on an earlier thread,, they had salmonella FFS. Medicine is taught too much in the lecture halls these days and apparently students are not getting enough clinical experience. Pharmacology is off the syllabus and there is talk of dropping morbid anatomy too. Quite prepared for a roasting from a few medics on this but I would like to know what has gone wrong?

I have to say we also have had problems with out of hours.

DH had an allergic reaction to an oyster and he went very red. I called ooo surgery and the dr, who actually sounded like he was having a party in the background, asked me to bring DH down to surgery. I said no as we had been drinking which meant we couldn't drive. Dr said he would be at ours soon. 15 mins later DH's face had started to swell up and dr still hadn't arrived. I called him back and told him what had happened - party noises still in the background - and he told me to call an ambulance.

Another time we called re. DS who had been very ill for a week with temp and initially he didn't want to come out. DH forced him to. He came and told us DS had a virus and would be better shortly. DS was ill for 3 more weeks and lost so much weight as he lost his appetite. We still think he had swine flu but just managed it ourselves as it was over Christmas period. Was awful though - he used to cry as soon as we went outside as he hadn't eaten, was painfully thin and therefore could feel the cold immediately.

Sunshine that sounds awful no wonder so many of us refer to the net these days. The rule of thumb seems to be to now treat every patient as though they were exagerrating their syptoms and that we are all malingerers and hypcondriacs. FIL was a doc and said that appendicitis was easy to spot in his day but the medical world think that they have magically eradicated the condition and it does not exist any more. My dn was seen by a GP, out of hours doc and 2 interns they all said it was food poisoning upset stomach etc. 1 admitted that he had not come up against appendicitis before FFS. So while they did they "wait and see" routine it burst and he contracted peritonitis. He was not suffering from a rare tropical disease
all the medics were too scared to stick their necks out on this and make a diagnosis and I am sure the route cause is down to the change in teaching.

My GP also told me i had a stomach ulcer when i had gall stones and local hospital send me home still in pain and being sick only to develop kidney failure and pancrestis

My head is my hands lisad poor poor you!

annie, do complain about your granddaughter's care. I'm afraid it is true that in many areas there are very serious problems with the GP out of hours service - the Dept of Health knows this perfectly well. The case of that poor man in East Anglia killed by the incompetent German doctor who had never administered morphine before, and was not even a GP, is just the most extreme. But it is probably not the only death. (German is relevant for several reasons - it was his first shift in the UK, he clearly had no idea how UK GPs work - had no experience of morphine, he claims he was exhausted after flying over here etc. etc. etc.)

thinking i might change GP

OP - sorry your dgd is unwell.

Pneumonia (caused by bacteria) often develops on a background of a viral chest infection, so it is entirely possible or probable that your dgd did have just a virus on the sunday, and then a secondary pneumonia by wednesday. The important thing is your dd did the right thing, and as she wasn't getting better took her back to the doctor.

The vast majority of children with a cough and high fever as she had on sunday get better as it is a self-limiting viral infection.

Sorry she did not, but i hope she is improving now and home soon

weasle - that could well be the case BUT the GP should have given the OP's dd very clear advice about what to do if the child didn't get better or got worse, what symptoms to look out for and what action to take. That's a basic requirement, not gold-standard - just what any half-competent doctor should do automatically.

I am sorry your grandaughter is sick and I hope she recovers soon. Pneumonia starts with very mild symptoms indistinguishable from viral infections and gradually deteriorates. I think it is unreasonable to blame the doctor for not being able to pick it up right at the beginning. I suppose it depends on what 'barely examined' means, did they listen to her chest? GPs have to make a judgement call on whether someone appears sick enough to be sent to hospital, which is often a general impression, rather than specific examination. Also one of the most important signs is breathing rate, which they would check without you noticing. If your daughter feels that the GP made a mistake, then first step would be to contact the practice manager to voice her concerns.

Out of hours GPs are always loathe to refer anyone to hospital these days. "Wait and see "is the new mantra. Something somewhere is "very rotten in the State of Denmark "and did it also start with the re-wrting of GP's contracts?