"Ignored parental concerns"

I recently took my baby in to ED as they'd fallen from their change table and knocked their head. The incident took place around 11:45 and we were at hospital by 12:15.

Whilst in the waiting room I was trying to distract my child, who hates being still and noticed their wrist was tender to touch. I brought this up to the waiting room nurse, who brought us in to EDAC, where I asked for some panadol for my child and again mentioned that their wrist was hurting them. We were given the panadol but no further treatment as we were moved again from EDAC to the paediatric area of ED, where we were seen by a doctor. I explained the fall and that I was worried about the wrist, but was told that my child would be monitored.

By 5pm, the doctor approached us again and told us they were happy for us to go home. I had to yet again explain I was worried about my child's wrist, only to be told that my child looked fine. I had to show the doctor that a slight touch to the area I was concerned about (that looked swollen and red) caused my normally happy child to cry out in pain before an xray would be considered. And when the doctor finally agreed, he seemed very hesitant to order the scan. We finally got my child's wrist xrayed and when the results came through l, we were greeted by not one but two doctors requesting an xray of the uninjured arm "for comparison due to growth plate development".

Whilst in xray, my child started to become more uncooperative so the scan of the good side was blurry but the xray tech told me there was a clear deformity of the injured side. By the time we were seen again, it was nearly 8pm, and we were told that my child had a fracture to their Ulnar and would need a splint. By this stage Allied Health had left for the day so my baby was put into a plaster cast (totally unreasonable for someone of their age in my opinion) and needed to be referred to the Occupational Therapist, which took 2 days before we could get an appointment to have a more appropriate splint applied.

Had the doctors in ED listened to my concerns earlier, while my child was being monitored for a head injury we may have been able to get the right splint earlier. Not to mention, ED was especially busy that day and I believe we could have taken up a room for half the time.