was doing a first aid course and it kept talking about how when applying first aid to a child you have to ask the PARENT for consent and how the child's consent is not enough unless you cannot reach the parent. and then immediately after there was a unit on shaken baby syndrome, and then mentioned abuse as a common source of children getting injured. and they didn't see the irony there. i later asked the instructor what to do about parental consent if the medical emergency was from the parent abusing the child and she was like "you still need to obtain parental consent. you can report the abuse though" not even acknowledging how fucked the whole system is. i hate it here. youth rights now
if a 17 year old walks into my emergency room and says rheir dad broke their arm, by law i have to contact the parent for consent, thereby telling the parent where they are. The best i can do then is call the police to come get the parent when they show up to drag the kid out (and no guarantees the police will do that! They may say the kid is lying and send them on their way! Not even mentioning the rest of the problems with police!) There are ways around it in larger, better-funded cities who can appoint someone through the courts if that happens, but im in bumfuck nowhere.
the only exception is pregnancy care if they're 14 or over. Even then the parent has access to the medical records and can easily find out.
We need to protect the rights of minors.
