Sarah took Jessica to the baby clinic for a routine developmental check up and got the shock of her life.  The health visitor Marjory Bennet-Brown ordered the removal of all Jessie’s clothes and became alarmed when she spotted the patchy rash on Jess’ shoulder.

            “Ooh, that looks sore.... How did that mark get there?” enquired the busybody.

            “It’s eczema,” Sarah breezed.  “Jessie’s prone to it.... She’s had it before.... I’ve been putting the cream on that was left over from last time.... If it doesn’t clear up in a day or two I’ll take her to the doctors again.  Infantile eczema seems to be in the blood.... David used to suffer with outbreaks of it all the time....”

            “Oh no,” the health visitor cut in quickly, “That looks like a burn to me....”

            “Pardon?”  Sarah asked in astonishment.

            “That looks suspicious.... I’ll have to refer it to the doctor,” insisted Mrs Bennet-Brown.

            Dr Manning was of the same opinion and she immediately jumped to the same conclusion that Sarah was a suspected child abuser.

            “Yes, this baby has definitely been burned.... You say that you didn’t do it, so we must find out who is responsible.  What about your older children?  Does anyone else mind this child?” Dr Manning enquired, quite matter-of-factly, while Sarah felt as if the bottom had just fallen right out of her already fragile world.  With the last ounce of her confidence shattered and a numbed mind that refused to allow her to think straight and logically, she stammered:

            “I-I d-do sometimes p-put her in creche occasionally while I p-play s-s-s-quash and she has been in nursery, but I’m sure she was never burned there and I know my older children didn’t do it because they are never alone with her....”

            “Well we have to find out who has done this - for your own sake too,” said the overbearing doctor.

            “I thought it was only eczema,” squeaked Sarah.

            “No, definitely not,” asserted Dr Manning.  “This injury has been caused deliberately. I must call an ambulance immediately and get her admitted to hospital straightaway.  She needs to be seen by the paediatrician.  This is an emergency.  How soon can you be ready?  You’ll need to pack some overnight things - she might have to stay in for a few days.  I’ll have to report this to social services too.”

            Sarah’s head was swirling and swimming so much she could’ve sworn she’d just downed a bottle of neat brandy!

            Burn?  Hospital?  Emergency?  Social Services?  Suspected Child-Abuse?  The words were banging and clanging and clattering inside her head.  By now she was beginning to wonder if Jess had rolled up against the hot radiator and accidentally burned herself, without Sarah realising it.  It was incredibly unlikely tho.  Jessie would’ve screamed.  Sarah would’ve known.  She was so mystified and bewildered that she simply couldn’t find an explanation; but she knew one thing, she definitely did not want those dreaded social workers poking their noses in; absolutely not.

            “Please,” Sarah begged.  “Please don’t call in the social services.  You don’t understand the situation I’m in with my ex partner.  If he gets wind of this, I’ve had it.  You see he’s doing his best to get all my kids taken off me.  He’s told social services the most appalling, horrendous lies about me being a lousy mother, but the truth is he is the one who puts kids at risk.  He has violently attacked his own kids and mine and he doesn’t care about the babies but he wants custody of them - just to hurt me.  He just wants to get me back.  And he wants to deny me my kids.  And if he hears that a doctor has called social workers on me then his stance is strengthened in court and there’s a good chance he’ll succeed.  Please.... I’m begging you.... Don’t refer this.... You don’t realise how sly and devious my ex is.  Maybe there’s some mistake; I’m sure it is just a harmless rash....”

            “May I remind you Miss Hawthorne that I’m the doctor here; there has been no mistake and I am duty bound to refer suspicious marks, especially where there is the question of the likelihood of child abuse,” the judgmental doctor affirmed.  “Anyway, we need to get to the bottom of this.... You should be pleased.... It’s for your own good.”

            ‘You should be pleased.  You should be pleased.  It’s for your own good.  It’s for your own good.’  Those horrible icy words kept ringing in Sarah’s head.  Of course she wasn’t pleased; she was mortified.  And of course it wasn’t for her own good; it was going to do her no good at all.  Nothing was what it was supposed to be anymore; everything was the total opposite.  Sarah was beginning to wonder if insidious and scheming Greg was behind all this.  Had he somehow infiltrated the very ruling body of the health department and somehow managed to convince them that she was such a wicked mother that she needed to be watched closely and her kids monitored for signs of maltreatment? And could the health staff now all be on ‘red alert’ to the possibility of her harming her children? 

            Her paranoid thoughts were once again leading her a merry dance.  But anything was possible and since she’d left Greg everything had been horribly stacked against her.

            “They won’t take my baby off me, will they?” whispered a timid Sarah.

            “No one’s going to take your children away but we have to protect children and there needs to be an investigation,” came the abrupt reply.

Within half an hour Sarah found herself being whisked off with all the kids in the ambulance to hospital.  She felt like a criminal being carted off in a Group four securicor van - all she could do was clutch on to her babies and sit and stare.  Dazed, tears of dread, fear and insecurity rolled down her cheeks. How she wished she’d taken Jess immediately to see her own GP before visiting that awful clinic.  How she hated smug inhuman and naive Dr Manning and how she wished so deeply that she’d never met beastly Greg Potter - the cause of all her problems.  Right now all she wanted to do was curl up and sink into a deep, unstoppable swamp.... Never to be seen again.

            Fortunately for Sarah the hospital doctors were less autocratic and tended to agree with her that the mark was probably eczema because they noticed other wispy red marks on her body.  Nevertheless it was decided that Jessica should be kept in overnight “for observations.”  Sarah was distraught.  She was still breastfeeding Jessie and she hated leaving her alone in hospital and although she could’ve stayed overnight herself, it wasn’t practical because of the other kids.

            Once Jessica had finished suckling and was snugly tucked up for the night, Sarah, David, Anna and Jason made the arduous journey home on three buses, taking almost two hours - a trip which would take less than half an hour by car.  All she could think about was the constant struggle that she and other single mothers faced, especially those who try to escape the sons of Satan.

            The paediatricians treated Jessica for eczema.  They all agreed that Jess had not suffered any malicious intent and she was allowed home the following day.  Sarah had to cart her babies and older children on the buses again in gale force winds and lashing rain.  She had considered ordering a taxi and redirecting the bill to Dr Manning, but thought better of it....

            Shortly afterwards Marjory Bennet-Brown had the brass neck to phone Sarah enquiring after Jessica’s health.

            “Like I told you, it was only eczema,” Sarah boomed.  “I think it is downright disgusting that you accused me of burning my baby daughter - I had to leave her overnight on her own because of you and Dr Manning over reacting.  I was told that if I’d just taken her to my own GP there would not’ve been a panic reaction and an admission to hospital and there would most certainly not’ve been a referral to social services.  You just don’t seem to realise how potentially damaging this could be.  I hope you’ll at least do the decent thing now and call social services off.  From now on I’m through with the clinic…. I find Dr Manning incompetent and high handed and I no longer have any confidence in her.”

            “I’m sorry you feel so hurt.  Would you like to speak to Dr Manning?” the health visitor enquired.

            “Does she want to apologise?” Sarah curtly asked before abruptly putting the phone down.

            She had no time for insincere pleasantries with Mrs Bennet-Brown and a domineering doctor.  All she wanted to do was blow her lid.  She wanted to shake the numbskulls and make them realise that life is so hard for some people and that well-intentioned health professionals can make things so much worse.  She wanted to get the message through to the ignorant health visitor who proudly boasts her seat on the domestic violence forum that the world is full of and is ruled by wickedness and wrongdoing.  She wanted the woman to know that her type haven’t got a damned clue about what domestic violence is and how evil and manipulative men like her ex are and how they operate; that such creeps use well-intentioned but unaware health visitors and unsuspecting social workers for their own sordid ends, the do-gooders being blind as a bat to the stark reality.

Common sense and reasonableness had not prevailed however and within hours Sarah had to stomach the social services gangsters.  She studied the two women standing at her door and could instantaneously think or more appropriate families that they should be bugging – on her road alone.  As they politely waited to be invited in, three-year-olds, barely out of nappies zoomed past her gate on their scooters and trikes and straight into the road.  At the top of her road where it meets the busy main road, gangs of youths with fags hanging from their mouths – some as young as six and seven amused themselves, chucking stones at passing motorists.  They chanted obscene messages, made rude gestures, swore like troupers and pestered passers by.  Roughly opposite her house, yobs of all ages including three and four-years-olds climbed up and swung from high scaffolding and some even smashed a window and crawled inside.  Towards the bottom of her road, other louts were busy running in and out of people’s gardens, slamming gates, playing ‘knock-a-door run’ and daring each other to climb up and crawl along roof tops.  And everywhere you looked there were drugs being sold – cocaine and heroin, and used syringes and lighters littering the streets.  And these women who were purporting to be CHILD WELFARE WORKERS were standing at her door hassling her!

            Sarah gesticulated her despair at the bedlam so commonplace on her road and asked what the children’s services were doing about it, but she was given short shrift and ushered inside to be interrogated about Jessica’s ‘burn’.  She was informed that the clinic was very concerned about Jessie’s welfare and that they were taking the incident seriously.

            “For heaven’s sakes,” Sarah cried with incredulity.  “Have you not bothered to enquire at the hospital?  If you had, you’d realise that Ms Manning had misdiagnosed Jessie’s so-called injury.  I deserve an apology from the clinic, not damaging innuendos.  This makes me so cross.  Doctors should not call social services on people willy nilly and you people should check out the facts first before barging in, bullying innocent folk.”

            “We wanted to hear your version before contacting the hospital,” came the lame excuse. 

            “Don’t you have any proper work to do?” boomed poor, subjugated Sarah.  “There is oodles of evidence of kids being subjected to daily, horrendous abuse…. You read about it all the time in the papers….”

            “You can’t believe the news stories,” one snooty social worker rudely interrupted her. 

            “Well there is something terribly wrong when social services spend a great deal of valuable resources on the likes of me whilst kids like that lot outside my door run riot trying to bring themselves up; many of them suffering severe neglect and hardship.  Mind you, it’s not surprising that so many kids have ‘behavioural’ problems and psychiatric disorders when they are forced to have contact with maleficent parents, and also because they and their parents are ruled by totalitarian, bungling bureaucrats.  And what is worse, rather than helping the downtrodden child seek justice and retribution, psychiatrists take the easy option and injure the kid further by suppressing him/her with ‘calming down’ pills!  It’s no wonder the poor mites ‘snap’ as adults and end up as uneducated junkies, or in jail or mental institutions.”

            There remained a stony silence, so Sarah stampeded on:

            “Those kids out there and countless more like them are full of frustration, fear and hate.  Many are products of broken homes and brutality, often inflicted by alcoholic and/or drug-addicted parents and most find themselves thrust out of the family nucleus, circling in orbit, unwanted and further subjected to ill-treatment and deplorable living conditions because of greedy, corrupt, self-serving adults such as those in charge of the so-called ‘protecting’ agencies, ‘care’ homes and the Authorities.  Wickedness has reached epidemic proportions and the masses of mankind are in darkness mentally – alienated from goodness, truth and facts, because they are ruled by your tricky representatives.  You pair would do yourselves and the rest of us a monumental service by questioning your managers and employers.  Ask them to explain how they justify their handsome wages and perks, plush offices and opulent living conditions and lifestyles while the world around them recedes deeper into disrepair and depravity with the youngest and most vulnerable sacrificial lambs bearing the brunt of society’s mess.  Good day to you ladies.”

Over the next week Sarah took Jess to three different doctors.  All agreed she had common infantile eczema.  All were surprised at the hasty actions of the clinic and ALL felt that there was certainly no need to involve social services.