Can school force child into a wheelchair?

kingfisherblue

Grrrr! I've had the opposite problem today. My son can walk, but only for very short distances before he is in pain. He is on high rate mobility and has a wheelchair.

He is in a special school and I have requested that they tell me when they are going out so that I can send in his chair (he doesn't really need it indoors). The teachers took the children out but did not let me know that his wheelchair was needed, so he had to walk.

I have very firmly requested that they do not do this - he needs his wheelchair for health reasons and he has tremendous pain if he is forced to walk too far. Parent Partnership and the local Carer's Centre have backed me up.

I find it a very sad state of affairs that schools ignore parental information and views. We are the people who know our children the best. We have attended countless appointments, listened to the consultants and surgeons when they have explained complex medical conditions, looked after our children at all times of day and night - so we do know what is best for our children.

Indie_Kid

Kingfisher - is keeping his chair in school an option? I used to know someone who did this. She'd use the chair when needed; but it would stay in school.

Butterfly_Brain

Kingfisher
Sorry to hear about your son.
It really angers me that these schools think that they know what is best for the children in their care and the parents don't get any say.
I would write a stiff letter to the Head and the board of governers and if you get no joy from that complain to Ofsted here is a link
http://www.ofsted.gov.uk/Ofsted-home/About-us/Parents-and-carers

angelicmary85

kingfisherblue wrote: »

We are the people who know our children the best. We have attended countless appointments, listened to the consultants and surgeons when they have explained complex medical conditions, looked after our children at all times of day and night - so we do know what is best for our children.

You know that that's all lies...HV's know best

I went to the specail needs centre with DS on Tues and he got a glowing report...but I might have 'accidently' made a formal complaint about the way we were treated after he was born. The consultant took notes and she said she was really upset to hear our story. It's been 9months since my wee man was born and I was still nearly crying when we were talking about it, I'll never forgive the hospital for tainting the memory of the birth of our wee boy

Butterfly_Brain

:TGood for you x

angelicmary85

Butterfly_Brain wrote: »

:TGood for you x

The more I talked about it the louder I was getting, I was trying to hold back the tears but getting angrier and angrier so was pretty much shouting in the woman's face

They wouldn't have treated us any differently if it hadn't been for me telling them that it was he has Down's. I knew straight-away, they lifted him up and I said 'he's got Down's Syndrome' and they looked at him and that was it...the start of the needles inhis arms & my night of hell. I told the consultant that we don't know what happened to him in his 1st 2.5hrs of life, I watched him being wheeled away through double doors and that was the last we seen of him for 2.5hrs, I'll never know what they did to him.

That's just got me thinking...can you ask for your post-natal notes so you can read them?

beanielou

Yes you can ask for your notes.

angelicmary85

beanielou wrote: »

Yes you can ask for your notes.

Do you ask the hospital or the HV?

beanielou

Take its the hospital notes you want to see?
So you would ask the hospital.
You have to pay a fee.

kingfisherblue

sh1305, keeping his chair in school isn't an option because we need to use it at various times through the week, but thank you for the suggestion.

Butterfly Brain, thanks for the link. If I need to, I will complain, but I hope it won't come to that. I've also considered asking my son's consultant for a letter if necessary - he wrote one for me when my ex tried to make me sell our house, which has been adapted for our son.

Angelic Mary, the way parents are told about their child's condition is appalling. I was 29 weeks pregnant when my midwife suspected that there was something wrong. I was very large for my dates, but my daughter and my niece had both been bouncing babies. To cut a long story short, it was confirmed that my son had a rare condition that would require surgery soon after his birth. At 32 weeks, the consultant told me to sit down and told my (now ex) husband to sit in a chair across the other side of the room. The doctor carried on writing and didn't look up at all. He confirmed that my son had a medical condition needing surgery and completed his sentence with 'Of course, that means that there is a 1 in 100 chance of him being Down's, but you didn't have any tests, so what do you expect?'!!!!

When my little lad was born, I wasn't very well (bad reaction to the general anaesthetic, which I had to have because the cord prolapsed and my son was in danger of suffocating himself). He had to be transferred by a specially equipped ambulance to another hospital - he was only about three or four hours old. The nurses brought him to me, but as he was wrapped in a silver blanket and I couldn't bend because of the stitches (my scar is hip to hip), I couldn't see more than a tiny bit of his left cheek. He had the condition that had been identified and more besides - he was given four hours to live at one point.

I saw him two days later, in intensive care, but alive and fighting. The surgeons couldn't give me any idea of how long it would be before he would be allowed home, beyond 'several weeks'. He should have been in intensive care for at least a fortnight, but recovered so well that he was moved to high dependency at seven days old. He was home at 19 days, much to the amazement of the medical professionals. Admittedly it wasn't easy - he had a tube for feeding, he was on tiny amounts of medication at regular intervals throughout the day and night, and there were numerous other problems - but he was home.

Apart from planned surgery, he has only been admitted once to hospital, when he almost died of pneumonia at six weeks old. He's now almost twelve and still has medical problems and requires a high level of care (mostly due to his other conditions, not the DS) - but not bad for a little lad who was given four hours to live!