CONTENT WARNING: Child Abuse
I worked in an admin area of an Emergency Room during the global health crisis, screening clients who could visit patients elsewhere in the hospital. We could only let certain people through, and while I was away from the main action, I was up and down all day reminding people about masks, washing hands, etc. We had some odd stuff walk through the doors during the crisis, but this was one of the most memorable.
One weekend afternoon, we had a very rare lull. A girl, around ten, used the buzzer to ask to come in.
Me: “How can I help? Who are you here to visit?”
Girl: “Um, I dunno.”
The girl looked very upset and uncertain, but due to the nature of hospitals, this isn’t unusual. But then, she burst into tears!
Girl: “He left me here!”
Cue a very emotional outburst from this poor kid. She and her stepdad had gotten to arguing while they were in the car together, and to “teach her a lesson”, he had left her at the hospital! The girl said he told her she might be able to find a new family because they no longer wanted her. The girl hiccupped and sobbed throughout this whole explanation over ten or so minutes.
As I am not a nurse, I called the head nurse on duty and explained, and we had five nurses turn up and take over. The head nurse was furious. They calmed her down, made her hot chocolate, and talked to her. They did a light checkover, and she was unharmed but shaken.
It took around an hour to get her calm enough for a name and her details, and we were at the point of calling the police when someone else rang the buzzer.
I went to answer, and guess who?
Stepdad: “Hi, I’m looking for my kid?”
Me: “Sorry, this is a hospital. Are you looking for a missing child?”
To be fair, I was ropable at this stage myself!
Stepdad: “Urgh, she’s not missing. I left her here.”
Me: “Left her here? Was she injured? Unwell?”
At that stage, I suspect [Stepdad] could sense that he had made a wee error. I could see on camera that he was turning a shade of bright red.
Stepdad: “Um, er, no. She was misbehaving, so like, I dropped her here and drove around the block.”
Me: “Sir, I have to check whether we have any children here. Can you give me a few minutes to check? How long ago did you leave her here?”
The stepdad turned even redder
Stepdad: “It was, like, an hour ago?”
Me: “Oh. Okay. I’ll let you in, and I’ll go and see if we have any spare children.”
I didn’t have time to do so as the head nurse came and collected the stepdad and took him to a side room. We couldn’t hear the whole thing, but she read him the riot act for nearly ten minutes, and a very cowed man came back out.
Afterward, she told us he had driven around the block, parked in our carpark, and waited an hour to teach her a lesson about talking back. Worse still, he wasn’t even married to the girl’s mother; he was just the newest boyfriend!
We had no cause to keep the girl at the hospital, being in the middle of the health crisis, we had no place to keep her, and the girl requested to go home with him.
We still called the police and children’s agencies on the family for abandonment and neglect.
