I hate my health visitor - rant

meritaten

jenny - just because 'Ive come across a few real PITAs it doesn't mean there aren't some gooduns out there doing a sterling job! I think if you are doing the job for the right reasons and not just to make yourself feel superior - then go for it! new and not so new mums will surely bless you, if you are down to earth, and not slavishly attached to whatever new fad is flavour of the month!

Person_one

meritaten wrote: »

jenny - just because 'Ive come across a few real PITAs it doesn't mean there aren't some gooduns out there doing a sterling job! I think if you are doing the job for the right reasons and not just to make yourself feel superior - then go for it! new and not so new mums will surely bless you, if you are down to earth, and not slavishly attached to whatever new fad is flavour of the month!

A lot of 'ifs' in there!

I'm afraid the people you are there to help will probably like you as long as you aren't doing anything that inconveniences or annoys them, or telling them anything they don't want to hear however true it may be.

Its not a career path that appeals to me, but its a necessary one. Don't do it because you want to be liked and have lovely relationships with grateful and friendly mums, do it because you think its important and feel you can do it well, whatever people think of you in the process!

dizziblonde

Mine's generally OK (I don't trust her an inch though) - apart from being terrible for not following through on things she's promised to do (I'm STILL waiting for the weaning leaflet she was going to get me next week when my baby was 4 months old... she's now 10 months), but one of the clinic staff is ridiculously - she's decided to fixate on this idea of me having PND, despite the fact the GP and I have already had extensive consultations and I have a completely different mental health issue with an actual diagnosis - she's still convinced that she's right and the GP is wrong... the reason she's decided I have PND? I have some hearing loss in one ear from repeated ear infections and burst eardrums from them - I often find conversation in busy environments hard to pick up on, and I didn't hear the baby's name being called very softly in clinic one day, partly through hearing loss and partly as I was mentally slightly zoned out composing my shopping list... so she's been obsessed with this being absolutely definitive examples of how I have PND ever since then!

I'll deal with any of the other team who do the baby clinics quite happily, including my named HV (although she does fall into that trap of assuming that you've got absolutely nothing else to do with your life but jump when she snaps her fingers that soooo many of the people connected with early child health do), apart from the PND obsessed nutbag - who the one time I asked advice on something, looked utterly terrified and stumped!

And tbh - if I want to know routes to access any kind of services or intervention - I'd go via SureStart and not the health visiting team anyway - SS here seem to have much less circuitous routes to get help and are much more approachable.

jellyhead

jennyc85 wrote: »

blimey... I am currently half way through completing my health visitor application form & I have to say after reading this thread I've been a bit put off!! I never realised how widely hated HV's are & how people view them as a waste of time... I may seriously reconsider my career path...

I liked the health visitors for my two :T

I remember my SIL hating hers though. I never met her so I don't know if it was just a personality clash or if she really did put my SIL down and make her feel like crap. SIL used to dread seeing her

I'm a volunteer in a surestart centre and I see how the support workers are with their 'families' (only because I know these families from the playground and am friends with them already - they don't just let any old volunteer listen in on private conversations, but we're often stood together chatting when the support worker walks past and joins in the conversation) and they always sound so positive and 'can do' about things, and never critical. That's how a good health visitor would be, rather than sounding critical and putting people off interacting with them.

pigpen

Jenny.. just don't make like you know everything, treat parents like they are stupid or be a knob and you'll be fine!

I refuse to see them.. totally useless for most families I think.

meritaten

I suggest you 'borrow' a baby to take to 'baby clinic' and listen to the HVs there. or even ask a question. Should be illuminating!
I used to take youngest grandson to 'baby clinic' as his mum was working that day - I got thoroughly P'd off with his named HV - tho the other one was pleasant enough.
What really annoyed me was tho that DIL had asked me to ask HV if she should make apt to see the GP as she was worried about the baby not sleeping. The HV asked when DIL would be in and she would pop in to see her. OK , except, she turned up every fortnight with yet another suggestion for DIL to try - none of them worked of course! I pointed out to DIL that two weeks is hardly a fair trial of a method! we tried the supernanny method and DIL ignored the HV and after a month or so Grandson did settle down. but HV still 'popped in' with suggestions, even tho she was told the prob was solved! what a waste of time!
her manner was very condescending too and she didn't half talk a load of rubbish! I have a degree in Pyschology, and she didn't much like my correcting her when she got terms wrong!

ChopinonaBudget

My HV was worse than useless - she made me feel like a complete failure, told me time and time again that I should stop breastfeeding and switch to the bottle, and as my daughter got older she appeared to have a fixation with whether I had fed my daughter Dairylea or Weetabix yet when she was perfectly happy being weaned on bananas and mashed veg. In the end I twigged that I didn't have to put up with her cr*p any more so I phoned up and said I didn't wish to see her again and didn't want any more appointments. I wish I had done it MUCH earlier.
I don't even begin to entertain 'professionals' like this around my daughter now - I have a choice as to whether I take her to the person she has been allocated, and have in the past refused to take her back to certain HCPs because of bad quality/damaging care.

sassyblue

jennyc85 wrote: »

blimey... I am currently half way through completing my health visitor application form & I have to say after reading this thread I've been a bit put off!! I never realised how widely hated HV's are & how people view them as a waste of time... I may seriously reconsider my career path...

Don't be daft! I loved my HV's - well one was a bit rubbish - but the others were fab and l missed them when l no longer had contact with them.

Follow your dream and good luck x

kingfisherblue

jennyc85 wrote: »

blimey... I am currently half way through completing my health visitor application form & I have to say after reading this thread I've been a bit put off!! I never realised how widely hated HV's are & how people view them as a waste of time... I may seriously reconsider my career path...

One of my children was born with severe disabilities, requiring surgery the day that he was born. Along with many other things, he had to be weighed every Friday and I had to ring Alder Hey with his weight - some of his conditions were related to the digestive system and he had 'failure to thrive'.

The first HV was brilliant. She came at 9.30 on the dot, had a cuppa whilst she weighed my son and checked that everything else was ok. Then she was told that she was travelling too far out of her area, so I was assigned another HV. Well, what a difference! Patronising just doesn't begin to describe her! She would stay for about two hours as well. I turned up at my GP's one day in tears. I just couldn't put up with her any more. My GP arranged for me to have my son weighed at the clinic each week - until then, I hadn't known that was an option. New mums are often ignorant of these things.

My advice to anyone considering becoming a HV - don't patronise mums. One of the things I hated the most was when my second HV used to say 'Oh, I know how you feel'. She didn't. How could she? Not only did she not have any children, but she also didn't have much experience with disabled children. She wasn't in my shoes, and never would be. She also used patronising platitudes such as 'all Down's children are always happy and affectionate' - first of all, she should have put the child before the disability (children with Down's, rather than Down's children), and secondly, no, they are not all happy and affectionate. They may be, but they can also be stubborn and sulky. She didn't know anything, or find out anything, about the other conditions that my son was born with. She wasn't interested, even though these conditions had (and still have) a massive effect on his life.

So, don't let the stories on here put you off if it is something that you really want to do, but bear in mind where other HVs have gone wrong. Don't make the same mistakes. You are not friends with your clients, but you can be friendly. Keeping appointments is important, as it shows that you respect that the mother has other commitments and her time is just as important as yours. Learn about disabilities if necessary, but be honest if you don't know. Don't patronise and take cliches as gospel - that is definitely a way to make enemies! Most of all, be prepared to listen. Not necessarily give the answers, because sometimes there are none, but just letting a new mum talk about her worries can help them to deal with things. Obviously if there are answers, that's great, but sometimes just being a listening ear (as my first HV was at times) helps more than you would ever know.

FWIW, I had minimal contact with a HV for my first and third children, and had PND with both. When I had my second child, who is the son with disabilities, I had no PND at all. I think the support from my first HV went a long way to helping me.

Lozzy88

I like all my HV`s, there has only been one woman that did my sons 9-12 month check up when he was only 6.5 months old so that annoyed me.

She also had some random woman with her that I am assuming she was training, but we were not introduced that annoyed me.

she told me he should be on solids by now (I had only just started weaning him) so a referal to the speach therapist was needed.

Then she tried to measure his length she yanked his legs down and he pulled them straight back up as he has eczema and the skin under his knees was sore and weeping ( I had been to the doctors 4 days in a row as my GP was wanting to make sure it was improving or he would get a hospital appointment to see a dermatologist) anyway this daft bint told me he wouldn't be able to crawl with his skin being like that, and told me to change my gp because they weren't compitent, she also refared him to see physio to help him get crawling.... erm he could already crawl and I told her and she ignored me.

I also mentioned he likes to use the baby walker thing meaning a walking aid that is pushed along, she then went on at me how all young mothers like me are lazy sticking our children in baby walkers ( meaning the ones with seats)

I then stood up picked up my son and told her to go forth and multiply and left, I was then chased out of the building by her telling me she needed to fill out my red book!

I wrote a strongly worded letter and never heard anything back till my new hv came for ds2, I mentioned how I don't want ds1 or 2 to have any developmental checks, she then told me this woman faced disaplinary action and she had been on the sick ever since ( over a year a go) so they had been unable to update me.

In gereral if they visits or if I manage to drag my lazy bum to clinic, I ask them something very basic I.e when is he due his next vaccinations? Smile and nod at the answer and then leave or tell them your going out.