Human rights health visitor

[Erlisk]

I have seen it here before but the posts are old. Before my baby was born i told my midwife (UK) that i did not want any visits at home. I just like my privacy and want to be able to decide who enters my home. They offer visits as a service so i just decided to not let them in. I was happy to go for appointments.

Then in the hospital when the baby was born, they told me "someone was going to come into my house even if i do not want that". I kept saying no. They kept saying they just wanted to see where the baby would sleep etc. i said no. Then the midwifes came to the door and i told them i did not want them in my house. So they reported me to social services. Social services called me and threatened with official investigation if i do not let the midwifes and later health visitor in my house. Also for the one year visit.

I texted them many times i did not want. I also told them in person. So i have a lot of proof. Ok long story short i let them in.because they threatened with social services investigation = trying to take your baby. I had to let them in, they said everything was fine, and closed the case. But instead of bonding with my baby i was stressed that they were trying to take her away.

So. It is ten months ago so the one year visit is coming and I DO NOT WANT THEM IN MY HOUSE. So i decided to go after them. And yes, it is human rights violation. It is not normal in civilised countries that someone comes to your house without your consent and without a warrant. If you do not let them in they basically threaten to take your baby.

I am not looking for the comments that they are just helping etc. I am not interested in that 😉. What i am looking for here is other moms who went after them. I am researching where to complain. I am also making a list of solicitors who would help me. And maybe some group court case? I will make complaint to NHS. I believe we only have one year for this kind of thing so only people who experienced this last year. Or if you went through going to court and have a good no win no fee lawyer (London or Kent). They are violating human rights you everyone so no, i will not let it go.

Other people have refused the visits and not had any problems. Does it not occur to you therefore that if the health services have a concern in this case then they may have a reason? Or do you think they're just trying to make some kind of weird example out of the OP? Certainly the majority view on this thread is that OP has displayed concerning attitudes, so do you not think it's slightly possible this may have also occurred in real life and that is the reason for all this unnecessary drama?

There is a reason - to check on the welfare of the child when there is something amiss which there clearly is..for a start considering this a human rights violation and spending so much time on it and a result claiming you can’t bond with baby.

there are clearly issues

Absolutely nobody has mentioned removing OP’s children, apart from OP who appears to have made it up out of thin air.

This baby has rights too and getting checked over after birth is one of them. If all parents were adequate and prioritised their children's wellbeing there wouldn't be any need for the overworked child protection teams we have.

I'd hazard a guess that the people making the most fuss about intrusion and their "human rights" would be calling for blood if there was no follow up and a baby died.

I find it chilling how the government there can force their way into your homes for no reason, under threat of removing your children if you don't comply.

They can't. One of my best friends has worked in social services for years and is head of childcare protection in a local authority. Children are only removed from their parents under extreme circumstances. Social services aim to support families so that they can stay together, not remove children.

In the UK new mothers usually only stay in hospital up to 24 hours after giving birth. Midwives then visit the new mother and baby in their own homes to provide post natal checks on mother and baby. The OP has refused a midwife check up and this has raised a red flag, and rightly so.

"Human rights" has nothing to do with this. The OP is completely ignoring the wellbeing of her newborn baby in favour of her own "human rights"

As parents, we don’t have rights over our children, we have parental responsibility. Part of that responsibility includes ensuring your child has access to healthcare services. By not allowing the midwife to check your baby, you are denying your child’s right to healthcare and not fulfilling your responsibility as a parent to ensure they receive the needed healthcare.

This is why you were referred to social services as baby’s needs are not being met.

@rampantivy I don't entirely agree with you. Your assessment assumes that those who visit are both interested and competent. That was not my experience. I became quite ill because the midwives ignored what I was telling them.

I let the midwives in the next time round but only because I had learnt the hard way and had I become ill and feverish again, I'd have called a doctor - someone a little more clinically qualified than the average midwife or nurse.

Yes, absolutely we have parental responsibility. I did not and could not fulfil that by relying in midwives and health visitors. If I had any concerns in relation to my baby I learnt very quickly to ensure they were attended by a suitably qualified doctor.

OP, you told them before your baby was born that you didn't want visits, you told them this at the hospital after the birth , you told them by text, you told them in person .

This is all so OTT , they have concerns and you can't see why . Most of us on here can .

I haven't had a baby in the UK but I have had them in two other normal, first world European countries. In both cases I had home visits postpartum. I have no idea if they were mandatory, it didn't occur to me to check. Nor would it have occurred to me to refuse them (not keen on randoms in my house either) because it was convenient to not have to go out and more comfortable at home and because I am normal.

This is not an entirely UK-centric thing despite your clear and desperate anglophobia.

I'm sorry that you were so unlucky. I had an excellent community midwife and a very supportive health visitor.

DD developed some serious health issues when she was a few weeks old, and I was so lucky that my HV had experience in this field.

Please don't tar all midwives with the same brush.

I've found this one of the most interesting threads for a while and it has brought up some other issues deserving of a new thread, mainly the terrible experiences many seem to have had with health visitors. Most of us seem to agree that this is in theory an important role, so how are so many getting it so very wrong? How can this service be improved and made fit for purpose? What's going on to ensure so many incompetents are slipping through the cracks? I'm genuinely interested to know.

I used to have a friend who was training to become a health visitor and I was pretty horrified, to be honest. She was far too judgemental and prejudiced to do that kind of work - hence the 'used to' part of the friendship. She very much used to get snarky about people living in nicer houses or sending their kids to private school and she had a serious chip on her shoulder about the middle and upper classes. I wonder now if she ever qualified and visited anyone on this thread...

@sharplily she sounds very much like the one I had!

I don't think the HV course is adequate and neither are the entry requirements.
My personal belief is that a midwifery qualification and a decent period of paediatric nursing should be prerequisites to the HV training course.
Anyone working as an independant practitioner should have a lot of experience in a supervised role first.

At the time I told the Health Visitor to go away and not come back I was a solicitor and quite well off, perhaps why I had no challenge. A barrister of my acquaintance made a point of telling doctors who attended his son that he practiced in medical negligence. Sadly if you have a bit of clout you can challenge more easily.

My HV had been an ICU nurse beffore becoming a health visitor.

When I had my eldest (noughties) midwife visits were universally every day until the baby was 10 days old.

by my last (2010s) this was cut to only 2 or 3 I think?

Which is great, but it isn't required.

I have just googled and it appears that currently you need to be a registered nurse or midwife with 2 years experience then a one year HV course.
That is an improvement - it used to be one year's experience. The type of experience isn't specified.

My HV did degree nursing, aged 18. I don't know jf she worked as a nurse for a year, but in 1995 she was 23 having completed the HV course. I think she'd been working as an HV for a couple of months.

It was blatantly obvious that she thought it her mission to influence the lives of the deprived. She was not equipped with the maturity or empathy to fulfil the requirements of her role.

I'm not persuaded that two years of post qual nursing/midwifery experience is sufficient. I also can't quite get my head around why as a society we train and invest in nurses and let them switch to a 9-5 job in their early 20s before they have dealt with significant responsibilities in their own lives.

Look up Finley Boden. His parents refused social services entry to their house on several occasions, using Covid as an excuse. The last appointment his parents cancelled was 2 days before they killed him. So yes, a parent refusing entry to a health professional is a red flag and rightly so.

This would only be relevant if the reason SS were asking for entry was because the parents had wanted to take their child to meet an HV at a clinic for the normal check ups rather than have the HV come into the house.

Edited to add: Oh would you look at that! You are comparing OP, who just doesn't want strangers checking out her house, to drug using, violent criminals whose care of their child had already been subject to a court hearing! You should be absolutely ashamed of yourself, cadburyegg.

OP refused a midwife visit after being told they would enter her house even if she didn't want them to. OP wasn't keeping her DC away from care or outside service providers, she was happy to meet HVs at the clinic. There is nothing about that that should raise red flags about OP, though someone should be talking to the HVs about the negative impact of breaking a patient's trust in her medical team.

OP did not refuse her child medical care. She was happy to take her DC to the clinic to be seen. This is not about the child's medical care, it's about the HV wanting to be able to see inside OP's house. Something OP has every right to refuse and which does not impact her child's human rights at all.

I see where you are coming from as I hate midwife and HV visits also, some can be so unhelpful and incorrect with their advice and can cause more harm than good.

However, I think for the sake of these health professionals being able to continue monitoring irresponsible parents I would suggest leaving this one alone.

I also think you'll be wasting your time and have a losing case here because of recent news of child neglect by parents - Sara Sharif case, many felt their local Children's Services didn't do enough. Following the Sara Sharif case, new legislation is being put in place tightening homeschooling rules.

If anything, the UK are becoming more strict on this kind of thing, and for good reason.