Called into the office for using my insulin in staffroom

[Fallgal]

I'm so sorry you had to experience this.

Regardless of legalities in the workplace, where is simple human kindness to each other? The situation you described is both sad and infuriating. I get angry when people are "uncomfortable" around breastfeeding women. Simply DON'T LOOK if it bothers you so **** much! I've never been a Type 1 diabetic, nor a mother, but I fully support every person's right to take care of their medical needs (and feed their children) in a clean, pleasant space without immature people getting "grossed out" or "uncomfortable". I went to uni with a girl who would sometimes remove her poorly-fitted prosthesis in class so she could massage what was left of her leg before she had to walk across campus again. She sat in a corner up front, so only me and one other student could see this. I was never grossed out or uncomfortable. I was only sympathetic (but not openly as to not embarrass her). People need to grow up, grow a pair and put themselves in other people's shoes and stop thinking about their own selfish needs. How about thinking, "Wow, poor thing, I'm glad I don't have to do that", rather than *adding* to the person's problems and distress by being offended? A big smile, a kind word, a pat on the shoulder of someone who is struggling - we are all on this Earth to help each other.

I hope you are able to get this issue resolved quickly.

 

[Yorksman]

?? lost me on spelling mistake mr

I know it was just a typo but the resultant word just reminded me of disgorging, 'to discharge or pour forth contents'.

 

[cath99]

I know it was just a typo but the resultant word just reminded me of disgorging, 'to discharge or pour forth contents'.

right hahah with u now ... never heard of that but sounds vile x

 

[Glen]

It's not your work colleagues fault if they feel upset, the fact they do is a matter which all concerned need to work out. Everybody should make reasonable adjustments, including you when taking your insulin. Some thought is needed about where, when and with who we inject ourselves. For example I needed to take insulin on a plane and asked the passenger next to me if he was ok if I took my insulin. Not only would be me impossible for him to ignore, there would also be a safety issue being cooped up so close. I think accidently jabbing a stranger could end up a whole heap of trouble. At least your employer has addressed the problem and would probably welcome your suggestions.

 

[lizdeluz]

I sympathise with you and understand how you feel. You don't want to go to a 'special room' to do your injection, because, for you, injections are a regular and necessary part of your life, you can't do without them, and you want to make them part of your ordinary lunch time.

I used to have lunch in a staff room with other teachers, and no one ever complained or said anything at all, but you sense that for non-diabetics an injection is a big deal and some people feel off put or queasy at the sight of a syringe.

Personally, I feel it's easier to cater for those people, by doing your injection under the table or while you're checking your pigeon-hole etc, rather than in full open view of everyone. You shouldn't have to, but other people of the non-diabetic variety are a fact of life, and most of them are nice and just want to eat their lunch without seeing a syringe.

 

[spaceman]

Sorry if i bring this up, i read a post earlier today by a teacher who experienced same thing that happened to me this morning.

My day started, but manager wanted to have a few words, said its nothing serious, then went on to say that several people have mentioned that they feel uncomfortable when i take my insulin in staff room, i use a novapen, i eat my dinner, was my plates, then take my insulin, i feel i'm discreet, i take my jumper off and just lift my sleeve, few clicks and its gone, i don't pull down my trousers or sit with a big syringe while i draw the insulin, now i've always as many of you have struggled through life trying to be accepted as having a normal life, but to be told that i should get up and go and take it else where, means i'm hiding my problem, i'm being pushed into a corner so i don't upset peoples peace, I admit i got very angry and upset, felt like crying myself as i've worked with these people for years and felt that they all understood i had Diabetes and accepted the things i have to do, but obviously not, i now feel like i've gone back to the dark ages and struggling to find how i can work with people like this who can't even speak to me about it.
I'm deeply hurt is about all i can really say.

check with ACAS or if your a union member thell sort it for you, if your not in the union join one. try unison

 

[j400jmo]

Hi

Your manager is living in the past as are your colleagues, injecting is part of your medical condition.
You could mention the Health and Safety at Work Act, employers responsibilities,
and the Equality Act.
Discrimination is against the law, what more can I say.

John

 

[Logie]

Hi,
I've every sympathy for you and had a similar experience in my school. I was told to shut the door and inject in my classroom. This was fine but resulted in me feeling isolated from staff. My classroom was located next to the canteen and was obviously busy at break and lunch, so I always turned facing a cupboard with my back to the door when I injected background insulin at break and FA before eating lunch. A vindictive teacher then complained that I was injecting in view of students!!
Teaching is hard enough as it is without diabetes, it's difficult for many to get the time to eat.
In hindsight, I wish I hadn't been isolated to my classroom, stick to your guns but don't be pushed into the toilet to inject.
Good luck

 

[jack412]

There is a discrimination law, breast feeding mums use to have a hard time too
It will only stop when people stand up. Email, memo or paper trail the relevant part of the act to the top dog. The mere mention of discrimination strikes fear for their job or bonus and self preservation kicks in

Tell them how watching people take oral meds is the same thing, you are taking your meds
Do they propose a med taking room?

 

[Adele99]

Some people get really squeamish about injections and needles , so I always took my insulin at work in the loo. Not always ideal if it was cold , but seemed so much easier to me overall, particularly as. I wouldn't have liked anyone watching me . And I never wanted to draw attention to myself . But then I was diabetic before these pens were available, or blood testing sticks. So bringing out syringes then drawing up insulin , and doing urine testing using tablets and a test tube wasn't exactly suitable for public viewing. Lol. So have just kept doing the I same thing, even when out with a friend who is diabetic and he takes his at the restaurant table while 8 disappear to the loo to take mine.

 

[Squire Fulwood]

Like many of the opinions already expressed I find this scenario unacceptable in that a nameless person has complained. I don't know what your work situation is like but I assume the upset person sits or stands near you otherwise they wouldn't get upset. Is it possible to have an ad hoc group talk where this can be brought into the open?

My feeling is that the manager might have amplified this problem a bit or even be the person complaining. You won't know if that is true or if it is a big problem until you talk to people.

I am still suspicious of your manager starting off by saying it's nothing serious. Carpeted for no reason really.

 

[Scandichic]

I take mine in front off people if they don't like it then they don't have to look do they xx

Sent from the Diabetes Forum App

Well said! I agree with @cath99
Utterly disgusting! I got told to take my bs test in the cupboard. It might upset the little cherubs! Do I heck as like. I do it quickly and discreetly. Sometimes the kids ask questions and I answer them. My tutor group have come into my room whilst I'm testing after lunch and have sat down and had a chat.
I would go to your union. Why are you the one who has to move. This is discriminatory. Just think, if you were a student and other students complained, what would the response be?! Interesting question!

 

[Scandichic]

I sympathise with you and understand how you feel. You don't want to go to a 'special room' to do your injection, because, for you, injections are a regular and necessary part of your life, you can't do without them, and you want to make them part of your ordinary lunch time.

I used to have lunch in a staff room with other teachers, and no one ever complained or said anything at all, but you sense that for non-diabetics an injection is a big deal and some people feel off put or queasy at the sight of a syringe.

Personally, I feel it's easier to cater for those people, by doing your injection under the table or while you're checking your pigeon-hole etc, rather than in full open view of everyone. You shouldn't have to, but other people of the non-diabetic variety are a fact of life, and most of them are nice and just want to eat their lunch without seeing a syringe.

But the op is not using a syringe ( so what if they are) but the pen so you can't "see" anything.
As I have already said, there would be a bit of a stink if it were a student! If it upsets them that much, perhaps they can go else where to eat their lunches!

 

[lizdeluz]

Hi

Your manager is living in the past as are your colleagues, injecting is part of your medical condition.
You could mention the Health and Safety at Work Act, employers responsibilities,
and the Equality Act.
Discrimination is against the law, what more can I say?

John

Many colleagues are probably living in the past in lots of ways. Do you take them all on, though, or do you quietly get on with doing your own thing, because you know you're right, and let them like it or not? Dare them to discriminate?

 

[Scandichic]

Many colleagues are probably living in the past in lots of ways. Do you take them all on, though, or do you quietly get on with doing your own thing, because you know you're right, and let them like it or not? Dare them to discriminate?

But the point is why should she go and take it somewhere else? We wouldn't say this to a student if the grounds were for the student going elsewhere because other students didn't like it. At the end of the day, the pen is quick, discreet and most people wouldn't notice. These people are educated adults and they need to grow up. Of course they should be challenged. And the member of the slt team should have been the one challenging them. Outrageous!

 

[lizdeluz]

But the point is why should she go and take it somewhere else? We wouldn't say this to a student if the grounds were for the student going elsewhere because other students didn't like it. At the end of the day, the pen is quick, discreet and most people wouldn't notice. These people are educated adults and they need to grow up. Of course they should be challenged. And the member of the slt team should have been the one challenging them. Outrageous!

In my school, ignorance about diabetes was astonishing. I was actually more concerned for the students than for myself, because I knew that I could look after myself - ( well, in theory, I could, though, I have to say, the school day for a diabetic teacher
can be pretty hairy, if not downright obstructive or detrimental to health.)

However, teachers and support staff definitely need better understanding of diabetes, and how it can affect and be managed by students themselves. Handwritten posters in the staff room, about diabetes, would be plain incorrect, and I never saw any colleague reading them anyway.

Epipens and insulin pens would be handed round at whole staff meetings for colleagues to familiarise themselves with, but without the necessary time or group-size really to do so.

A student who was high would be removed from a lesson to run around the field with a teacher/support worker.

Often, a T1 student would lose 20 mins of a lesson in order to go and shoot up, rather than just inject in class!

Once, I was told I had to keep my insulin pen and spare insulin in a locked fridge in the medical room. I put them straight.

There was poor understanding of the emotional effects of diabetes on teenage students, and, apparently, not much awareness of the extent that behavioural issues might or might not be related to their current blood glucose status.

I believe, recently, there has been an initiative to improve the lot of diabetic teenage students at school, but it's overdue, don't you think? As for younger students, the issue of actually injecting, if necessary, in loco parentis, must be another difficult one.

As for teachers, of course they should inject when and where they need to, and it's other colleagues who should adjust. In the past, I've, wrongly, probably, just taken the line of least resistance.

 

[Scandichic]

In my school, ignorance about diabetes was astonishing. I was actually more concerned for the students than for myself, because I knew that I could look after myself - ( well, in theory, I could, though, I have to say, the school day for a diabetic teacher
can be pretty hairy, if not downright obstructive or detrimental to health.)

However, teachers and support staff definitely need better understanding of diabetes, and how it can affect and be managed by students themselves. Handwritten posters in the staff room, about diabetes, would be plain incorrect, and I never saw any colleague reading them anyway.

Epipens and insulin pens would be handed round at whole staff meetings for colleagues to familiarise themselves with, but without the necessary time or group-size really to do so.

A student who was high would be removed from a lesson to run around the field with a teacher/support worker.

Often, a T1 student would lose 20 mins of a lesson in order to go and shoot up, rather than just inject in class!

Once, I was told I had to keep my insulin pen and spare insulin in a locked fridge in the medical room. I put them straight.

There was poor understanding of the emotional effects of diabetes on teenage students, and, apparently, not much awareness of the extent that behavioural issues might or might not be related to their current blood glucose status.

I believe, recently, there has been an initiative to improve the lot of diabetic teenage students at school, but it's overdue, don't you think? As for younger students, the issue of actually injecting, if necessary, in loco parentis, must be another difficult one.

As for teachers, of course they should inject when and where they need to, and it's other colleagues who should adjust. In the past, I've, wrongly, probably, just taken the line of least resistance.

It is quite amazing isn't it? I don't inject and am fighting it every step of the way with metformin (reduced from 3 to 1) and LCHF diet. If I feel funny, I test on the grounds that it's impossible to tell whether you are high or low. It has made life a lot easier for the diabetic kids in my class. Now they are open if they need to test and just get on with things in the lesson. I have never heard the other kids be anything other than positive. I don't think it should be hidden away. It should be a matter of fact approach. Part of the norm. I don't make a big show. I just do the test discreetly at my desk. Would do same if I needed to inject too. If I need to eat I do too. Most kids know I'm diabetic as they would ask me why I was eating in the early days whilst it was all new and I was getting it under control and I would just say. I don't believe in ramming it down people's throats but equally I refuse to hide away and be a second class citizen!

 

[ConradJ]

Wow! I'm flabbergasted: not just at the neanderthal attitude of @Beat2k 's colleagues and manager, but at the way in which some respondees have almost felt we should bend over backwards to accomodate the delicate emotional inability of some adults to naked flesh and a needle!

Let's exchange 'diabetes' for paraplegia, and then exchange the syringe and needle / pen / pump for wheelchair...

Now, who's in the wrong?

Manager: "Beat2k, some of your colleagues have expressed their discomfort at the presence of your wheelchair in the staff room whilst they're having lunch; I think you need to consider leaving it outside or eating your lunch in another location: the toilet might be a good idea, yes?"

Don't let the idiots get away with it!!! We can't help needing insulin via injections / pump, just as paraplegics can't do without their wheelchairs!

 

[Robinredbreast]

Just wondering if it would it be the same response if you were using an Inhaler, eye drops, changing a plaster on a cut or would you be asked to leave the room and eat somewhere more appropriate because of a severe case of face acne ? , I really don't think so...

 

[ConradJ]

Just wondering if it would it be the same response if you were using an Inhaler, eye drops, changing a plaster on a cut or would you be asked to leave the room and eat somewhere more appropriate because of a severe case of face acne ? , I really don't think so...

Or asked you to eat elsewhere because you were of a different skin colour or religion... wake up apologists! This sort of ignorance is why we have the "Equalities Act" and the "Human Rights Act"!