Nursery missed medical emergency - what would you do?

[Worriedmum97]

What would you do with the nursery in a situation described below? 2yo DS had what looked like an asthma attack (he's never had it before) and the nursery ignored it.

When I picked up my 2yo DS from his nursery at 6pm I noticed that he was breathing heavily. I asked one of the ladies if he was running around before I arrived and she said that he wasn’t and that actually he was tired all day and after the walk to the park he was very tired and sleepy and went straight to bed. I said that I’m concerned about his breathing and the high heart rate, the lady responded by saying that DS has been like this all day and she was surprised that I didn’t know, she thought that he was like that at drop off. I run with him to the pharmacy around the corner as I have never seen him being like that and wanted to check with the pharmacist. When the pharmacist saw DS he told me straight away without even asking any questions: “Call 999 NOW”. We had two teams of paramedics coming to us and they all were surprised that the nursery didn’t call them earlier. DS’s heart rate was twice the norm for his age and his oxygen levels were dangerously low. DS was given steroids on his way to A&E, it didn’t work well as he’d been suffering for quite a while by that point. The doctors at A&E had therefore to use stronger medications (second line treatment). DS spent 2 days at the hospital with a lot of medical intervention and spent his first 24 hours there on ventilation. All the doctors who saw him said that he looked very poorly and were saying that it should have been the nursery who should have called for an ambulance and leaving a child in such condition was a complete negligence. 2 days later I received a call from the nursery manager and what astonished me was the excuses that she was giving me. She said that the members of the team were concerned about DS, but they asked him (2 year old boy!!!) if he was feeling ok, which he said: “Yes”. They also asked his (6 year old!!!) brother who attended the nursery on the same day: “Do you think your brother is ok?” which his brother responded: “Yes, he is just shy”. I fail to understand how anyone could ever ask a 2 year old or 6 year old child to evaluate someone’s physical condition and moreover to rely on that. And no one ever thought of trying to call us.

Have you done anything about this OP?

As a nursery deputy, this alarms me. We have had a similar case where I and manager were called to a room for our opinion - child’s chest was rattling, breaths were short, couldn’t really call out as throat was so sore....it can be hard to tell if it’s an emergency or just nasty illness - in this case we decided to notify parents and if there was no response we would send for ambulance as the rattle style breathing was worrying us. In this case the parents took to doctor and it turned out to be bronchitis but still we always say better safe than sorry.

The excuses worry me. It demonstrates that they know they missed vital signs. I once decided not to make a curtesy call when a child got poked in the eye as it looked fine. Parent picked up and in the hour before, the eye suddenly swelled, and child looked like they had been punched! Parent rightly upset and a harsh lesson learnt. My manager made no excuses and said it was a severe lapse of judgement (I was very new to the game at this point)
The fact that they said he had been like it for most of the day - they should have called you with their concerns. This is where they went wrong and you should hold them accountable. The excuse from manager is beyond poor. They should have expressed their concerns to you. Those symptoms aren’t normal. Advise them that you are contacting authorities and Ofsted and gage their reaction. Something in their policies needs checking after this. I hope your little one is now ok