"Patient experience"

I am writing to express my utmost disappointment with the treatment my child received by a particular doctor recently.

Firstly, the appointment was meant to be mid-morning I had to call 3 times to see how much longer they would be, then when I was advised to bring my child down we still had to wait an hour to be seen which is a bit ridiculous in my opinion when you have other kids with you.

Once the doctor finally came to see my child, my child really wasn’t interested in listening to their history with ear and throat infections. I was told that we shouldn’t have even been allowed in the clinic because they have had temps. I advised the doctor that no one had been sick in our house or my child had not been around anyone who had been sick. They don’t leave the house really, other than when they started daycare for the first time the previous week, to which the doctor replied, you don’t have to go anywhere to get COVID, COVID comes to you, which I do not believe to be the case at all.

All the doctor seemed to worry about was COVID testing my child, and yes, I understand we need to be cautious but honestly, I feel that patients should be examined properly first, especially with a history of things such as ear and throat infection, even more so when it is a child.

The doctor only checked my child's ears which were red they advised me, they didn’t, in my opinion, check my child's throat properly, the doctor said it was red when they had done the test. I did advise the doctor that my child had bad breath, was dribbling a lot and when they would swallow they were in pain. I also advised the doctor of my child's temps over the weekend which was high, up to 39.8. I was giving my child Panadol and Nurofen to help with the temps but once it wore off the temp would be back up again. I advised that my child was vomiting, which I put down to gastro as there had been gastro at the daycare.

I feel this doctor just really wasn’t interested in what I had to say and was only worried about COVID testing my young child. In my opinion, the doctor basically made me feel like I was an idiot and had no idea what I was talking about. Yes, I may not be a doctor but I am a mother of kids who all have a history of the throat and ear infections. 2 of which have had their tonsils removed, I believe a mother always knows best, as the saying goes.

I did ask the doctor what to do if my child gets worse and their response was I had to wait for the COVID results to come back before anything could be done.

Well, my child proceeded to get worse over the day and night with their temperature getting to 40.8. I called the clinic back and advised that my child was getting worse, the nurse advised me to take them straight down to the hospital and what do you know, my child's throat is red raw and our family doctor, who is absolutely amazing, prescribed antibiotics.

I don’t expect a reply or even for anyone to really care about my feedback but I just feel that it should be more of a concern about what’s really wrong with patients, not just going straight to doing COVID tests.

Regards.