"My baby's treatment"

Before arriving at the Emergency Department (ED) at Warren District Hospital, I had been monitoring my newborn's temperatures that had been fluctuating from 37.5 - 38.7 for 4 days.

On the day of seeking hospital treatment, my son's eyes were droopy, his skin colour was grey, he had been sleeping as newborns would and even though he was still feeding, I felt after 4 days of temps, something was wrong.

Once arriving in ED, I was triaged by a nurse who asked me repeatedly what I thought the problem was, I said, wasn’t too sure, but his temp and colour wasn’t normal and was quite concerned; now, I understand ED's can be busy places, but once in the treatment rooms, the nurse asked me to undress my baby to weigh him; the nurse then walked off and left me standing with my sick naked newborn and didn’t return for at least 3 minutes, to which I called them to come to weigh him; who then told me I could dress “her” and wait in the other treatment room. Observations were taken.

Another nurse then took over, and I waited to see a doctor, I explained the same to the treating doctor, explained that this is my third child and I felt something was not ok with him, his high temps were of major concern. The doctor suggested that my child will just have reflux, and assures me in their honest opinion, there is nothing wrong with my child and will be fine.

The doctor kept us overnight to monitor him and said we should be fine to leave the next day. During the night a nurse came in to do his stats, the first time they brought a portable machine in to read his oxygen levels, which read 75%, I then asked if this was normal, to which they replied “it’s probably just broken”, I explained when I come home from my hospital stay with him at birth, there was a small handheld machine that they used which was very accurate; the nurse stated they didn’t know where it was kept, and to my surprise, for the next set of observation they brought the same machine which read the same stats as before.

Now, as a parent of a sick child, I was quite concerned at the lack of care from a nurse, who was using faulty equipment. The next morning, the midwife on duty whom I have had great dealings with in the past mentioned to me that sometimes babies get unexplained temperatures. The doctor discharged me and I left. I believe my baby's skin tone was still not normal, neither was his temps, but trusting these professionals I left.

For the next 2 days, I wrote every single temp, feed, nappy change, as I knew there was something still not quite ok with my baby. I visited my GP who ordered a CPI blood test and X-ray, which showed his infection markers were rather high. By that night, we were admitted to another hospital, being treated for sepsis from a UTI.

He was subjected to blood tests, lumbar punctures, and high doses of antibiotics before this diagnosis was made; the staff at this hospital made me feel like I was being heard and acted on this. I felt so angry and frustrated about the treatment of myself and baby at Warren District hospital and made to feel as if I was just an 'over-worried' parent, who was wasting their time. But in actual fact, if they treated me seriously, I believe my son wouldn’t have been going through the pain they were for another 2 days and wouldn’t have ended up so seriously ill.