"Let down at the hospital"

Since our child was born they have been in the NICU and the High Dependancy Unit at PCH. Over these weeks we have had some wonderful and attentive nurses and doctors.

Unfortunately, more recently over a few days, I feel our child has been let down. More recently, over a couple of days they have had some issues with their breathing which we have addressed with the nurses and the doctors and they have been keeping an eye on. These have been short periods of high 'work of breathing' usually around the same time in the afternoon and usually resolved themselves.

When we arrived into the hospital our child had noticeable sustained difficulty breathing which gave us cause for concern. We told the nurse who was also concerned and we kept an eye on it. The morning nurse told us if we felt concerned to make sure a doctor came in and witnessed their breathing issues. 

Later in the afternoon after lunch time we grew concerned enough about our child's breathing to request a doctor to come and see them. Our child at this time had moderate rib recession, head bobbing, noisy breathing and increased respiratory rate. The doctor arrived and said they could not assess our child because they were feeding and they would be back in 15 minutes. They spent less than 30 seconds at the bedside and no assessment was done.

My child's breathing continued to get worse and they were becoming increasingly unsettled over the afternoon. This left us feeling helpless and worried as we hadn't seen our child this uncomfortable in weeks. We asked the nurse to call the doctor again to see if they could come see our child. The doctor said they would be there in 15 minutes as they were doing their rounds. I understand the nurse was also worried about our child's 'work of breathing'. After this the nurse became occupied with another baby and we waited for the doctor. 

One and a half hours later the doctors who were doing their rounds came to the room. I recall they were having a joke and laughing at the front of the room. They went and saw a different baby in the room and left to go to the next room without seeing our child. This left me and my partner very upset. However, we assumed they would come back to finish their rounds. 15 minutes after that they walked past the room and went somewhere else. 

At this point as our nurse was still busy with another patient we flagged down a nurse in the hall and asked them to call a doctor. They were unable to get a consultant or registrar but was able to find a junior doctor to see our child who at least made us feel like our child was being attended to. Eventually a nurse was able to get a more senior doctor to come see our child a number of hours after we initially asked for them to be assessed by a doctor. When this doctor arrived they mentioned how they, I recall, 'only see's our child when they're feeding', which only emphasised the fact that it had been a number of hours since the doctor had initially said they would be back to check on our child shortly. 

Overall, this was a traumatic experience which left us feeling helpless and upset at the doctors. It is a horrible feeling sitting there while your child is struggling to breath and feeling like the people that are supposed to be there to help seemingly don't care at all.