The doctor: – I can see that you have pressed urgently.
Mother: – Yes, but she is lying down and breathing very, very quickly. And she seems…
The doctor on duty: – No, but it’s more regarding skipping the queue. A second time, do not press urgently.
Mother: – No, okay. But it is difficult to assess. I get worried.
This is how the call started, when a frightened mother called the doctor on duty at Region Nordjylland late one evening. Here she – like everyone else – was met by an answering machine who told her that if it was an emergency you might press nine and get through to a doctor faster.
It is up to the patient to assess when the condition is acute, and it is completely understandable that the mother, Isabella Tarp, dialed the emergency number.
Shortly before the call, she had looked following her six-year-old daughter, Ella, who had been getting progressively worse during the evening. The girl complained of stomach pains, and – according to the mother – looked white around the eyes and lips and seemed confused.
Most parents will think that it is quite urgent, and will of course try to get in touch with a doctor as soon as possible.
In that situation, the last thing you need is an on-call doctor who starts by blaming worried patients or relatives without the doctor having even heard the reason for the call.
Of course, there may be a reason why the doctor points out at the end of the call that the call in question is not of an urgent nature. Unfortunately, there will be an impatient minority who abuse the opportunity to get through faster, and if you press urgently to get a prescription renewed, it is perfectly fine that you get a clear message.
But in this case it was the opposite.
Here the doctors on call should have listened more to the parents.
Because they had no doubt that there was something seriously wrong with their daughter. Good thing they don’t have any medical expertise, but on the other hand, no one else knows the daughter better.
Three times during that night they called the doctor on call, but were refused, and today Isabella Tarp and her husband, Kasper, understandably do not have much faith in the doctor on call system.
They wonder why none of the on-call doctors would see Ella via video call or give them a time to come into the hospital with her.
– I also think they should have asked more. I had the feeling that I didn’t finish the conversation until I was scolded for typing that it was urgent, or I was told that I had to give her some Panodil, says Isabella to Nordjyske.
Only the next day – when her own doctor opened – did Ella see a doctor, and from there she quickly went to the hospital, where it was established that, in all likelihood, she had had acid poisoning as a result of undiagnosed diabetes. It might potentially have had a fatal outcome, but luckily Ella escaped unharmed.
Hopefully that story – and the many other stories that appeared in the comment track for the article – will give the on-call doctors cause for thought.
Because of course they also make miscalculations, and some of the mistakes can also be fatal.
It cannot be otherwise.
But the errors must be as few as possible, and in this case it might have been avoided.
also read
The doctor on duty said it might be managed with Panodil – but six-year-old Ella was in danger
2024-02-28 06:35:11
#worried #parents #oncall #doctor #starts #scolding
