Wednesday, September 21, 2011

ALL PARENTS ARE CHILD ABUSERS - LCH



Readers of this blog should have guessed by now that I am no fan of the NuNHS which literally throws away millions of our cash on unworthy causes like lifestyle control while turning it's back and refusing to treat those who do actually pay very high taxes to ensure their healthcare in future when they need it.

I particularly despise Lincoln County Hospital because it killed my mum and so I was really worried when my new eight week old baby grandson had to go recently after an accident. I was right to be concerned.

Daughter No 3 is an excellent mum and the healthly, happy, contented nature of my (almost) five year old grand daughter is testament to the very good care that my daughter and her partner give as loving, dedicated parents who make mistakes just like any other human being.

In a moment's oversight, my daughter put the baby on a hard backed dining chair as she stood behind him with two hands holding him. She took one away for a second to reach for his bottle as she was about to feed him. In that second he fell off the chair, she couldn't catch him in time, and he fell and smacked his little head on a hard laminated floor.

It swelled up immediately and my daughter and her partner of seven years were distraught and besides themselves at what had happened. They already felt responsible enough. Within 15 minutes he was at hospital and that is where the real nightmare began.

The doctors and nurses at LCH were more concerned that she was a child abuser who had battered her baby than they were about his health. She was traumatised because of his injury and wracked with fear that this powerful organisation, grilling both parents and trying to confuse them about what happened, would take her children from her as they inferred this was a case for Social Services to investigate.

They kept her in for three days not because of my grandson's injury but because they wanted to watch and monitor her every move.

Even worse was that someone, somewhere in that hospital, has obviously made a mistake - or the hospital is simply lying and trying to confuse my daughter - when they claim falsely that she gave "three different stories as to how he came by his accident."

No! She gave one story, as recounted above, and she has never faltered from that. Why would the hospital tell such lies?

We are all aware of cases like Baby P and Maria Coldwell years earlier and in fact do support methods of trying to ensure that abused babies are protected.

My daughter despite the trauma and finger pointing even said she was glad that the hospital takes this stance because she never wants to see another tragedy happen to another baby who falls through the Social Services' net.

But why in ensuring protection for babies does the hospital have to take the stance that all parents are child abusers and all babies need protection from them without at least offering some sort of support for those they unjustly accuse?

Why do they either not be more discreet about their suspicions, so they so not add to the distress of already grieving and worried parents after such a dramatic accident, or at least provide proper advocacy services for such parents they treat so appallingly.

My grandson had a full body scan (for old injuries) which upset my daughter a lot because "old injuries" on one so very young implies that she beats him regularly. He also had a head scan to check on his injury. So far my daughter has received the results that show he has never received any other injury in his short life but she still waits for the results of - and is still worried about - the head injury that took him to hospital in the first place.

Instead of getting these results that she has waited anxiously for, she got instead a visit from social services to her home today again repeating the lying allegation that she told three stories about how her son fell.

Even worse, is that she was told that we all now face investigation. If they believe my daughter to be a child abuser, then they believe it must be because me and my other half, and her partner's mum and dad, must have abused them.

And let's not forget that the "abuse" which never happened but simply lies in the imagination and paranoia of hospital staff will now appear on some sort of written record to be used against my daughter's family in future.

My grandson is a boy. He is bound to come to some of rough and tumble injury in future as he grows up and if he does have another accident in childhood, then Social Services and the hospital will use this non-event as "evidence" that there must abuse in the family because Social Services have had to visit before.

Indeed, my baby grandson's dad as a young boy had an playtime accident that damaged his head. Back in those days parents got what they deserved and needed - care, compassion, sympathy, and reassurance. Lincoln County Hospital should be providing this first and foremost and if they have any doubts they should do the decent thing and provide an independent advocacy service such as Parentline or their own health visitor, who knows the family better than any on-shift medic, so that those like my daughter can at least have someone professional to speak up on their behalf and get answers to questions they need such as :"Will my child be OK?".

The truth is that the hospital and the NHS generally is picking on good parents because they can't get the bad ones. To help them live with their conscience on failing to stop the deaths of the baby P's, they pick on those who are easy to bully to make themselves feel better.

Bad parents who smack a child so hard they break it's skull will not take the child to hospital for fear of being exposed. The hospital and our social services can't do the job right so they do it badly and offensively.

While hospitals protect our children from us, who is protecting our children from them and our elderly from being killed by NHS neglect and those murdering medics who slip through their ever so selective net?

I think the NHS should get it's own house in order and put in place systems of interrogation of its own staff to ensure that no more babies die while in NHS care.

Meanwhile, I have telephoned the hospital to register a formal complaint. After ages of waiting to be put through to "complaints" I ended up speaking to an answering machine.

My view is the NHS does not care. It can only bully. It has become a vile organisation.