"Our adventure to get a nut out of my child's nose"

My young child had a nut stuck up their nose. It was after the hours of our local gp so we went to Pingelly ED, our closest emergency department, we live 20km west of Brookton. I rang ahead to find out if they could help, the nurse on duty said they could have a look and if it wasn't too stuck they could get it out. However, because of my child's age and where the nut was stuck they could not help us, we were then sent to Narrogin ED.

In Narrogin the Dr there tried a few different things to extract the nut, but with no success. Part of the issue was that they could not find the right equipment for removing items from the nose. Eventually the Dr in Narrogin decided that the only way to extract the nut was to give my child a general aesthetic and intubate them. However, because they were under 4 their protocols meant they could not do this in Narrogin. We were then advised to go to PCH. By this stage it was 11.30pm and since the nut looked like it wasn't moving the Dr (after consulting the ENT Dr on duty at PCH) sent us home to then go to PCH the following morning. 

There was never an issue with the standard of care we received, but I did feel a bit frustrated to be sent to 2 different Emergency Departments that were not equipped to deal with my child because they were under 4. I would have much preferred the nurse at Pingelly to have advised we go to PCH direct or maybe Armadale ED that would have been able to help my child and us not having to drive over 100km during the night to then travel a similar distance the next day to Perth.