Was I wrong to call 999?

[adamadamum]

Last week my daughter (aged 7 but has special needs, a rare disorder which makes her more like a 3yr old at best) managed to jump onto a screw - yes, not a nail but a screw! (I am careful about safety in case anyone was wondering, how the screw got onto the floor is a long story but I obviously hadn't known it was there!)

Anyway judging by the size of the head of the screw it looked big, and was embedded deep into her foot. I'm a single mother with no family nearby and I don't drive. The hospital is two bus rides away and I didn't have taxi money (I usually make sure I have a kitty for emergencies but had to dip into it to visit my mother before she died (which she sadly did, yesterday). Plus it was a Sunday, so buses were running once an hour!

When the young woman who works in the local shop asked why my daughter had a poorly foot, I told her, and said I cried in the ambulance. She obviously thought I had done wrong in calling an ambulance, from the things she said "You'll be lucky if they don't charge you for that!"

Mind you, she also asked me why I cried! Needless to say, she doesn't have children.

So, do you think I was wrong to call 999?

My experience of hospital transport is that you cannot get it sent round for minor injuries etc.

It has to be booked in advanced by an authorised person.

It also takes ages as you generally are only one of quite a few patients who need to be picked up on route.

Not really an alternative to an emergency ambulance. Its for outpatients appointments really.

A couple of times I have had to have ambulances for me and the DCs (stipulated by Doctors not by me) and I have felt guilty and as if I am wasting time and resources.

Both times the ambulance staff have assured me that it was quite all right and almost all of their calls are to old people's homes picking up old ladies whom the care workers are not allowed to lift. Not that they minded that, nor should they, but they were grateful for something a bit different to break the monotony. Two different crews said the same thing.

So sorry for your loss. However expected it is, it is still an awful time, so big hugs.

You absolutely did the right thing. My neighbour is a paramedic and they get called for all sorts, and your dd turned out to have to be sedated poor love.

Honestly 'brave the bus' with a dd with sn, with a screw in her foot! There's always one on here, u did the right thing.

ahh we must have an on-the-ball hosp chesgirl! I know my mum has used it before with no problems, but i guess it's one of those things that depends entirely on the hospital

You did what you needed to do for your DD. They always prioritise calls anyway - had someone had a heart attack or other life and death emergency while they were on the way to you, they would have diverted.

The woman in the shop wasn't there, didn't see the screw, doesn't know the circumstances and should wind her judgmental neck in.

But doubtless you are feeling very sensiitive and raw because of everything you are dealing with - I am so sorry about your Mum.

Agreed Blu. All ambulance services use a priority dispatch system whereby the calls are graded in order of urgency and the ambulances sent to the poorliest patients first.

It is a common misconception that you phone 999 and an ambulance races to your door lights and sirens blaring. If catagorised appropriately then 999 calls can be downgraded to a 'cold run' and the ambulance can come to you under normal road conditions, assess your situation, treat on scene or transport to hospital if needed.

I used to work as an EMD (Emergency Medical Dispatcher) and trust me, I have seen far more useless calls in my time. I think you did the right thing.

You absolutely did the right thing, there was no other way to get your DD to hospital. You gave the 999 operator the right information for them to prioritise your call appropriately. In this area if you need to organise transport to hospital on a sunday it goes through the same system as the 999 calls anyway, but is just prioritised according to how urgent it is needed.

Very sorry to hear about your mum, it doesn't matter how much you are expecting it, it still comes as a shock when it actually happens.

Gosh, what a shit week for you.

I think you did the right thing.

I was wondering along similar lines myself last week. There was a very elderly man - very clean, well dressed in casual clothes, clean wound dressing (not a band aid - one applied by a professional) on his nose - bumping around in the street and asking people for money near my office one night last week.

I thought he looked like he could be a dementia patient who'd wandered off. He wasn't one of the homeless people who are usually in the area. Directory enquiries were useless and wouldn't give me the number of the nearest police station unless I knew what it was called, so I gave up and dialled the emergency number.

The dispatcher was fine with it.

thisis Must be. We had murders with the home/hospital transport. Me and DD both hated it but had no choice, no parking anywhere near the hospital.

DD was supposed to travel alone but that hardly ever happened. We would often be put on a minibus with people coughing and spluttering all over her and it took us several hours to do a 45min journey.

Not one of my fondest memories of her otherwise excellent treatment.

i've been thinking about this more today and it does seem crazy that there isn't some kind of middle ground doesn't it?

for people like the OP, who just need to get to hospital relatively quickly, but who don't need full-on ambulance and paramedics and all the rest.... hmmm

I think it probably would work out more cost effective to have the full-on ambulance and paramedics doing this work in between the very urgent emergencies than to have a completely seperate service running through quiet times at evenings and weekends though.

So long as jobs are properly prioritised I don't see a problem with this.

So sorry to hear about your mam Adamadamum

I think you did the right thing. You had no way of getting your daughter to A&E quickly and this would have been the best way. If it wasn't, the call operator wouldn't have sent an ambulance to you. How is she now?

In my area they dispatch a paramedic car first to assess the situation if the 999 call operator thinks it necessary. If an ambulance is needed then the paramedic car requests one.

There is a middle ground in some areas.
My granny fell over and cracked her head open a while ago. The ambulance service sent out someone to assess her condition, to stitch her and to decide whether she needed to go to hospital. Sort of triage in your own home.
Fabulous service.

I am so sorry for your recent loss and the difficulties of being an only parent with a SN child. I used to work in A&E and you would only have got a hug from me. Doctors, nurses and ambulance crews are all parents too.

So sorry about your mum. Sounds like you're going through a rough time.

I think you did absolutely the right thing. Yes, paramedics are there for the real emergencies but they are happy to help in other circumstances. When my DH was terminally ill with cancer, he couldn't get around very well and I was concerned that I wouldn't be able to get him back into bed once he got up. Our Macmillan nurse assured me that, in those circumstances, I'd be okay to call 999. Sure enough, it happened. He got himself downstairs one day and couldn't get himself back up. I couldn't carry him so we had no choice but to call 999. The paramedics were lovely. They got him back to bed and one of them even took the DSs out to the ambulance and gave them a tour to entertain them while the other made sure DH was okay. I felt very guilty that I'd taken them away from emergency calls but they assured me that ours was a valid call. I've never forgotten their kindness and their help during a difficult time. Don't feel guilty that you needed to call on them during your difficult time.

I haven't been on for a few days, as my mother recently passed away and you know how everything goes into limbo when you lose someone very close to you. But thanks for your comments and support. Looking back on it, I would still do the same thing if heaven forbid anything like this happened again!

I hate people wasting emergency services time because they are too cold or whatever! but when it's a child with special needs, a screw with all those threads, gone right into her foot, and it's bleeding but you know you can't remove it yourself, and you don't know the size of the screw but it looks BIG, and you can't get her to hospital any other way unless you spend HOURS using public transport...I haven't really doubted my decision at any time, just felt the need to make sure others would do the same in my position!

So thanks. Her foot is now recovering very well, she had the screw removed under ketamine and this Friday she happily participated, in her own way, in her school's sports day!

Just wanted to say sorry about your Mum. It must be such a sad time for you.

FWIW (and a bit late I know) of course you did the right thing by calling 999. Your daughter might have needed pain relief and certainly needed you nice and calm and holding her hand the whole time (not possible while struggling on public transport). A screw in a child's foot is not something you can leave a few hours - it might have damaged a nerve or started bleeding heavily and thus become a very serious injury in an adult, let only a particularly fragile child. I'm glad to hear she is recovering well.

sorry about your mum.

i would've called a ambulance in those circumstances.

in nov, my dd4 has breathing issues early in the morning, and we were blue-lighted 10miles to the nearest hospital with open childrens a+e.

later that day, dd4 started to get bad again, and i called my dad to take us back to the hospital. i wish i had called an ambulace then, as a 20min journey ended up at an hour and me giving dd4 constant inhalers until we got there.