Makhosazane M

Opti Baby Rosebank

I must express how disappointed we are with the incident that occurred, and the outcome thereof. . We entrusted our child to what was posed to be "premium" care, expecting that Opti-Kids would understand and honor their duty to provide reasonable care to our baby. Every parent expects their children to be in a reasonably good state when they pick them up at the end of the day as when they left them there in the morning. Us collecting a child from school, with a "dirty" nappy that was clearly left on for a while (since some of the poo was stuck on his bum and partially dried), which resulted in a severe raw, nappy burn with some light bleeding on his bottom. This means the applicable standard of care wasn't met, clearly. The mere expectation of any parent is that their child is treated with reasonable care and that they child is cared for in a way that eliminates preventable injury. Such severe nappy burn, was definitely preventable. As parents/caregivers, we all know that. I picked up my child from school, and he was clearly in some sort of distress when he was handed over to me .. he was in agony throughout our 5 minute drive home, and wreaked of a dirty nappy.. The manager of Opti-Baby stated that she conducted investigations and her response was that she checked the cameras and it saw my baby's nappy was changed during the day and that they "checked" the nappy before handing him to me to go home.. implying that a soiled nappy and severe nappy burn happened in our 5 minute drive home? (doesn't make sense), nor is it in any way making us feel as if our child is safe at a school that handles such matters in such a dismissive way. Throughout all of our engagements there has been no sense of accountability, or a solution of a way forward that is assuring that our concern is understood and measures will be put in place to remedy any gaps that may have led to this incident happening.. instead it seems like a blameshifting exercise. Mistakes happen in any environment, and I am accepting of that, but a service provider dealing with customer in a manner that leaves your customer feeling invalidated, dismissed and having no sense of comfort knowing something will be done to try remedy their pain point, is an experience I didn't expect to have with the manager of this school. Telling a parent that the footage was viewed and everyone did their job isn't at all comforting or reassuring, especially since I called the school 10 minutes after picking my child up from school, and immediately sent pictures of the burns (to show that my child was definitely handed to me in that state; and in the given timeline it would be impossible to fabricate such bad nappy burn as we all know it takes HOURS for raised, red patches of nappy burn, with bleeding pores to occur on a baby). I decided to withdraw my baby from their care with immediate effect, and was told I have to pay one months notice. Before I end this story off, Id like to mention that I appreciate how my baby's class teacher, and especially the assistant class teacher handled my complaint; I arranged to pick up my child's belongings and was met by the assistant teacher, and teacher, who gave me the time of day to relay my concerns, they were remorseful and apologized for anything they may have missed, they also pled with me to please let them remedy the situation and reassured me of them making sure they'd do all they can to fix this, I expressed my gratitude for this and was saying that it's such a pity the manager of the school didn't handle my complaint in the way they did, with basic customer service etiquette of validating my pain as a parent, trying to solution my problem so I feel me and my child are valued customers, and ASSURING ME OF MY CHILD BEING IN GOOD HANDS WITH THEM.. The school looks lovely, has amazing facilities, and is well marketed.. but I completely regret enrolling my baby there. After one month with them, there were alot of gaps and red flags I experienced, and I truly regret entrusting my child to this brand. Happy for those that had a good experience with the Rosebank branch, I met many amazing parents along the way. Unfortunate my story ended off sour.