Please help my child...

When I arrived home yesterday, I went upstairs (as I always do) to catch the last 10-15 minutes of my daughter's day. Usually, her last 2 or 3 stories are punctuated with games of peek-a-boo with Daddy (or da-DEE as she says) and high-fives (she even now makes the 'ssshht' sound as our hands meet) before she goes to bed and I go make dinner. To a point, yesterday was the same as every other weekday evening. Until I asked my wife how her day went. Instead of the usual, unexplored 'fine', she told me a story that really got my hackles up. Now, if you know me, you know that me getting my hackles up is different than when some people get their hackles up. For some, getting annoyed means getting angry... for my wife, it meant getting so riled up that she uncharacteristically ignored our daughter's pleas to be entertained. To the untrained observer, it may appear that I was unmoved by her story. But I guarantee you that I sat, I listened, and my hackles rose. Not my voice, or my heartbeat, or my stress... just my hackles. And when they get up, what I do is to explore solutions and to agree a way forward. Then I write.

The story she told me yesterday was one, sadly, of totally predicable circumstances. In a world so concerned with blame and so concerned with spurious litigation, my wife was told that, under no circumstances was she to give assistance to a child in need if their own medication was not available. Specifically, when dealing with a student who is need of the life-saving help that comes in an 'epi-pen', she was told that she could not administer the exact same medication from another child's epi-pen if the child in need did not have the appropriate medication with them (it was faulty, or out-of-date, or otherwise unavailable). The same restriction would apply to the application of a generic asthma pump: if the child's own was not available for whatever reason, she was not to administer the medication from anyone else's inhaler, even if it was demonstrably the exact same medication and dosage. 

You might think 'fair enough'; we're all told not to take someone else's medication. But what was the reason behind the advice...? Well, it wasn't because the child may be put at more danger by using someone else's medication. My wife asked, and was told that paediatric epi-pens are all the same (adult ones are different), and colour-coding on asthma pumps ensures that all blues are the same, etc. So using another child's epi-pen or inhaler would not put the child at more risk. So it's not about endangering the child. No, the reason for not giving potentially life-saving assistance to a suffering child was clearly this: you might get sued. Not 'you might kill the child', or 'it's illegal/unsafe/impossible' - my wife was told outright NOT to help a child who might die otherwise because of the unsubstantiated and vague threat of being sued. Have we really gotten to the point where we are willing to let those around us die rather than do everything we can to help them - because we might get sued? I suspect we have, and I suspect it's really rather sad. I suspect we're predominately a world where people would rather not get involved because it's easier to walk away than to risk the consequences of a global community hell-bent on blaming each other for every little thing. So I guess it doesn't surprise me that this was the advice given to my wife, but it does get my hackles up.

So I'm putting this out there. If you see my daughter suffering, and you know of a way to help her, please do it. I'd rather someone try to save her than for her to die while everyone covered their asses. Please notice that I said 'know' of a way to help her. Don't make up shit that might make things worse - just do your best without being reckless with her life. I guess I'm not saying to do stuff you don't know how to do, or to put yourself at risk to help her (I'm happy to do that, but I'd not expect you to). I'm simply saying that if she's in trouble, and you can help, please do. I don't mind if you borrow someone else's kit to do it - if it will save her life, get it done. I promise I'll do the same for you and yours.