Thursday, April 06, 2006

DRABC

Theres been a lot in the papers here recently about the national chain of ABC child care centres and some rather worrying instances at a select couple of the centres where it appears child supervision was....you-could-say lacking somewhat.

A mate of mine just called over and related to me a story of a friend of his who picked up her child from a child care centre (not an ABC centre) here in Melbourne just days ago. Once they got home, the child was noticed to be suddenly drowsy, irritable and lethargic. Off to the doctor they go. On the way, the kid produces 3 spectacular projectile vomits in the car ....why don't they put windscreen wipers on the inside? The doctor takes one look at this kid and calls '000'.

A 'probing' phone call to the child care centre uncovers the fact that the kid had a spectacular fall with a head strike during the afternoon, but staff didn't think to tell the parents or make any note of it. One emergency department, lots of head scans later and the diagnosis is a rip-roaring concussion.

Kids will always be kids, and you are kidding yourself if you think your average active child won't knock themselves silly at least once during their childhood. But you'd sort of hope the child care facility would at least tell you what had occurred, so you could keep a closer watch on the little tacker for a few hours. Wouldn't you?

1 comment:

caramaena said...

I'm very glad my son's childcare centre has a policy of telling you about every bump etc. Even ones that you think are tiny. All noted in a book, along with their actions afterwards and how he's been the rest of the day.

Having something like this happen would horrify me.

Just found your blog, by the way. Looking forward to reading regularly :D