Over zealous proffesionals (debate)

[Nics]

Just be interested to hear your opinions on this.

A few weeks ago a child less adult came into my home and placed a hot drink without my seeing in a really silly place, and my poor baby Jasmine grabbed it...and you can imagine the rest, dozens of ice cold wet flannels, upto the docs, then the hospital, fortunatly she is fine and it was just one of those awful awful accidents that happen the person concerned felt awful as did I

However I was told at the hospital that my health visitor would be informed (she hasnt contacted me but none the less she was informed).

A couple of days after this happened my little girl trapped her fingers in her toy chest and my first thought was *oh god please dont let her need to see a doctor* (because at this point I was still expecting to have to have my grillling from the HV for the burn incident!).

About a week later my sisters little boy got a really high temp with a rash and because it was out of hours she took him to A & E, and once they had established it was just a virus and nothing dire they started asking her a dozen questions about bruises on his leg

It just makes me think maybe the over zealousness will have the opposite affect, because Ive got to be honest I can put my hand on my heart and say my children have never ever been abused in any way shape or form yet Im a little bit scared to take them to the hospital if they accidentally injure themselves?

It shouldnt be like that should it??

[Nics]

PS Scuse massive spelling gaff in title but I cant get back to edit it!

[Cherrypie]

I get what you mean, Nics. And I'm sure the vast majority/all of us on here would never cause our kids harm by neglect or wilful actions.
However, cases of child abuse can be picked up by these sort of checks. And how else would they show up, apart from a worried neighbour or friend reporting it? My DH works in A&E, so maybe sees a disproportionate amount of suspect cases, but they are more common than most folk think.

[~Twiggy~]

No it shouldn't.

And I'm sure it will place the emphasis on the wrong parents. You obviously did the right thing in going to the Docs etc, But if you didn't seek advice and was found out about the incident then that would be more concern I suppose.
I suppose bad press or failing to pick up on past events form professionals may have a bearing on this over zealousness.

[Chocolate Lips]

I guess they have a job to do, and there have been masses of cases where HV and GPs have been accused of not acting in time and children have come to harm at the hands of their parents or carers so I suppose they are just erring on the side of caution. Your sister may well be a lovely person who would never harm her child but the doctors don't know that.

I had to take Isabel to hospital last year and there were signs everywhere saying that your HV would be informed but I didn't think anything of it - surely they have your best interests at heart so may want to know to follow up any illnesses/injuries.

I did have a slightly worrying (read that as neurotic hormonal mum) moment when James was very small when bruises appeared on his leg and the HV made me get the GP to look, and phoned me up a few times about it and got another GP to look at his 6 week check a day or two later. After the neurosis calmed down I realised that my HV was worried about meningitis or another illness and that she was trying to be safe rather than sorry and actually I was quite glad that they were taking things seriously and paying attention.

I try not to worry to much about what professionals think as at the end of the day they are there to help us and my GP and HVs have been absolutely wonderful.

[Jubjub]

It wouldn't bother me at all if someone asked me about bruises or scrapes on William.

I would assume it was part of their job to look for signs of abuse and ask the relevant questions. I think doctors/teachers etc are right to ask if they see anything out of the ordinary. William always has bruises on his legs or scrapes on his knees, so I wouldn't be shocked if someone noticed and asked me what had happened. Vigilance is a good thing.

Better to question lots of people and find the vast majority of them to be totally innocent than let abuse slide because it might upset people to ask.

[Nics]

Im very luckily in the respect that my Health visitor and I are very friendly she's helped me with a number of issues, and I bumped into her in my post office a couple of days after the burning incident and told her what happened just in the course of conversation, so I would imagine thats why she didnt contact me in an official capacity.

It just scares me that mistakes like the recent one in Norfolk do happened and cannot be rectified afterwards, I wonder how many times those parents wish they had never take their precious little ones to the hospital?

[Jack_the_Cat]

I would feel like you Nics & worry about what conclusions might be made but I agree with jubjub,

Better to question lots of people and find the vast majority of them to be totally innocent than let abuse slide because it might upset people to ask.

It wouldn't worry me to the extent of not seeking out medical attention should it be needed.

[lazymummy]

However I was told at the hospital that my health visitor would be informed (she hasnt contacted me but none the less she was informed).

.......................(because at this point I was still expecting to have to have my grillling from the HV for the burn incident!).

I think the informing HV thing is to some degree just a box-ticking exercise, TBH-both of my boys have been in hospital (as emergency admissions) this year, and I've heard zip from my HV!!!!

[redhed]

It's part of the ECM (Every Child Matters) thing as far as I can see - there have been a number of high-profile cases of child abuse where the child died and it is largely because one service (eg the hospital) didn't inform another service (eg social workers) and the people who were supposed to be monitoring the child didn't realise how much they were at risk. So procedures have been changed.

The down side is they have to ask these questions and follow up for every child and that does leave you feeling they suspect you. Though there will always be isolated cases where these routine questions lead to a full-scale investigation where it isn't needed, it does seem rare - how many people have posted here that their child has been in hospital with one accident or another? For all of them, the HV or whoever will have been notified. So I suppose you can take comfort that though they do have to ask these questions and they do have to inform other services, it is very much routine rather than because they think your child is at risk.