"ED wait times for children"

Two children (aged 7 and 1) had a head collision at home, resulting in one of the children (aged 1) becoming unconscious and stopping breathing. Immediately called 000 who dispatched an ambulance, prior to the ambulance arrival, child regained consciousness so cancelled ambulance as still on phone and took both children to ED.

After being triaged, waited over 2 hours to be seen and in this time no further checks were done. Once into ED, checked by nurse and told to wait for doctor. Over an hour and a half later, still had not been seen by doctor, and still no further checks by nurse. At this point the only checks that had occurred were the usual pulse and blood pressure. No check ins as to how the child was presenting, whether the behaviour was normal, or if we had any further concerns. No concern as to how parents felt after going from calling an ambulance to waiting hours later to be seen, or whether we had any other concerns.

We could see that ED was busy. We knew that we would have to wait, and were understanding of that. However, an adult with a toothache was seen before us, having the doctor take the time to explain that some dentists have emergency appointments.

We understand that in regional areas the demand on ED may be very high at times. However, with children and head injuries we would have thought that there would be some sort of priority with this. Particularly given that they had become unconscious and had stopped breathing immediately after the head collision. Especially given that the age of the child being 1, meant that they could not tell us how they felt, or if they were feeling worse, or if anything else hurt other than their head.

We unfortunately had to make the decision to leave as at the time we had other family members have to look after our other child. When we told the nurse this, there was still no concern, just a simple 'we are busy, we keep getting ambulances in. If you feel comfortable leaving then that's fine.' We didn't feel comfortable leaving however also felt we had no choice. We would have preferred to stay and have them checked properly. I told the nurse maybe we should have come in the ambulance, I recall their response was, you would have been put in the waiting room anyway.

My concerns are that if it was a simple check over by a doctor to be dismissed, then why couldn't this be prioritised over things like a tooth ache? If it was more serious then why did the tooth ache get prioritised? Why is it that the nurses who we dealt with seemed to have absolutely no care factor at all.

The next day, we received a phone call from a doctor checking on the child, however to make things worse, they called about the 7 year old and not the child that was unconscious which was our main concern. The doctor on the phone didn't even seem to know that this has happened.

I do not expect any changes to occur, and simply expect to be told exactly what the nurse told us (that everyone gets triaged and we would have to wait), however, my concerns are that what does it take for a child head injury to be prioritised? At what point does a parent need to be concerned? At what point will parents be taken seriously?