Grandfather takes wrong child out of school after mix up

A school handed over the wrong child to a grandfather who came to collect her for a doctor's appointment.

An investigation has been launched at the Napier Community Primary School, in Gillingham, after the six-year-old girl was taken to the doctor and prescribed liquid paracetamol.

It is understood the grandfather did not realise he had the wrong child.

Can I just start by saying if the grandfather took the wrong girl to all the way to the doctors then I think it’s pretty obvious, and not merely understood, he didn’t realise he had the wrong girl.

Now while this is quite shocking I am a bit confused as to how the situation went as far as it did.

Apparently the girl who the grandfather mistakenly thought was his grand-daughter has the same name and was in the same class, now on first hearing that you think well then this error in judgement isn’t as bad as I thought.

But there’s nothing saying the girls look alike and also when the grandfather arrived and said I’m here to pick up Claire, for the sake of my story I’ve named the girl Claire, don’t ask why it was the first name that popped into my head.

Anyway when the grandfather said I’ve come to take Claire to the doctors, why then did the person who went into the class to get her, presumably knowing that there were two Claire’s in the class, not use a surname or some other way of differentiating between the two to make sure they got the right one?

Then, and this is the pretty galling bit, how could the grandfather not recognise that the girl wasn’t his grand-daughter, and actually why did the girl who was mistakenly taken out of class not say I don’t know who this man is, he’s not my grandfather, I don’t have a doctor’s appointment today etc.

Finally after everything that’s already happened the doctor then prescribes medication to the wrong girl, I mean I might be missing something here and these two girls for all I know maybe completely indistinguishable, but how could no-one up to this point have noticed the mistake. 

Thankfully the mother of the girl who was mistakenly taken to the doctors realised the error when her daughter showed her the medication she’d been given, I mean how this situation could go that far without anyone realising is a bit bonkers.

As a result of this incident the school has quite rightly launched an investigation to ensure that something like that never happens again, and I’ll tell you another thing that will never happen again that grandfather will never be asked to babysit again, ever.