Two children walk in to a doctor's. One in need of an assessment for a chesty cough, the other in need of a referral to CAMHS (Children and Adolescent Mental Health Services).
The first child who had been coughing for a week was stripped down and given a thorough check up. The GP listened to her chest on both sides (twice), monitored her heartbeat and her oxygen levels, took her temperature, and checked inside her ears and mouth. The whole process took around 10 minutes.
The second child was glanced at but not spoken to. No questions were asked in regards to the nature of the referral and after tapping a few words on his computer the GP matter of factly said
"This referral will get rejected"
The whole process took two minutes. If that.
If you're waiting for the punchline for this absolute joke, then I'm afraid there isn't one.
Just more of a 'punch to the guts'
Because this isn't a joke. It's real life.
The fact is that I took two children into that surgery with me that day, and both of them needed the help of a GP. Yet they couldn't have been treated more differently.
In 2017 where equal opportunities is an actual law, how is it that a comparison can be visibly seen between the treatment of two small children by a supposed professional?
Between two anybodies even?
Is it all just bullshit?
Let's face it. My child has been discriminated against before he's even been diagnosed with having a problem.
Does he not deserve the opportunity to have his symptoms investigated, just like his sisters were?
Just because they can't be physically measured, does it make them any less real? Or any less worthy of treatment?
The GP was right.
HIS referral was rejected. Due to insufficient information.
Luckily, my children have been blessed/cursed with a mother who takes absolutely no shit, especially where her children are concerned. So upon finding out my son had been rejected from CAMHS I did my own referral. And this WAS accepted. Not only was it accepted, but he was deemed as high priority and given an appointment for three months time.
Yet I can't help but feel unsettled. How many children have been rejected from services they truly need due to an insufficient and quite blatantly incompetent GP referral?
How many children have then grown to be adults and struggled with day to day tasks, which could have been lessened had they been given the opportunity to be diagnosed in the same way a person with physical ailment does?
Probably too many to even bare thinking about.
Do equal opportunities even exist at all when parents have to fight and jump through hoops just to be listened to when they cry for help in relation to their child's needs, just because they don't follow the lines of normality?
Are these children set up to fail even from the word go?
If anyone reading this has experienced something similar then I truly am sorry.
Every voice deserves to be heard.
Please don't feel discouraged.
I may be mocking the idea of the existence of equal opportunities at present, but the only way we will truly make a change is if we don't stop shouting.
Continue to make a fuss.
If you don't agree with the treatment your child has received, demand more.
You are perfectly within your rights to do so.