"Insensitive follow-up care"

This isn’t so much about the Australind child health nurse as such, but the whole system in general. Why bother calling me and wasting 20 minutes of my time asking what I feel are generic tick and flick questions which is clearly a butt covering exercise in my opinion. I am extremely disappointed with this.

I feel I am lucky enough to have support, but imagine those poor new mums who don’t? I saw the child health nurse at 6 weeks after an in-depth phone call and then what felt like a quick 15 minute visit where they couldn’t stop looking at their watch and made it very clear it was just to tick of a checklist, and then had a call on the day of writing this, for their 4 month review. I thought why bother? As if I’m going to divulge information about my life to someone who I feel clearly does not care, as long as the box is being ticked.

We have no rapport, so why ask me if I’m in a domestic violence relationship? Why would I tell a stranger? Why ask if I’m depressed or feel like my child is at risk? In my opinion, most of the time you don’t know while you’re in the midst of it anyway. I’m not and I’m very lucky to have a great partner, but what about the poor girls who are? What ever happened to regular home visits so that babies and mothers who are at risk can be identified? It was so obvious to me that they didn’t really care and I was thinking the whole time that this is literally just to meet their KPIs. Why ask me if my baby has hearing or vision problems? I thought how would I know? As a first time mum, I have no idea what my baby should or shouldn’t be doing, and how would anyone know if their baby is developing correctly if they aren’t seen in person by a health professional? I felt so let down after I got off the phone.

I could just imagine first time mothers who have no family close by, or people to turn to when they have a problem. Imagine all the babies who are at risk or in vulnerable situations who slip through the cracks because it seems to me that it’s easier to mitigate risk and make sure the health department isn’t held responsible by asking a few pointless questions over the phone, rather than go out in the community like they used to do. I felt it was just a 'get in touch if you have any dramas, and the next check up is at 12 months and I’ll flick a few emails through’. Absolute waste of time and resources if you ask me.