"Options for single parents"

I work for an Aboriginal organisation and I was speaking with a parent who presented at the emergency department at Geraldton Hospital with their young child that was struggling health wise. Their child has impetigo which they had been treating with antibiotics and the child had a couple of doses and they said the child might need something stronger if it doesn’t get better. It didn’t get better and so the parent took their child to the hospital and the doctor tried to give them more antibiotics and discharge them, but the parent said they wouldn’t leave until a paediatrician has seen their child. Eventually, they got a doctor and their child ended up being admitted and put on an IV drip for stronger antibiotics.

The issue was that this was a single parent with 3 children, one being a toddler, and they were forced to leave the other 2 children because they had to stay at the hospital with their sick young child. The problem is the parent's only options were leaving their 2 children with family members or with child protection. The parent didn’t feel safe leaving their children with child protection as the parent was worried they wouldn’t get their children back, and they also didn’t feel safe leaving their children with family because there were issues at the house like overcrowding and the parent felt especially scared for their toddler.

When we spoke to the hospital with the parent, apparently previously they had allowed the parent and their other 2 children to stay at the hospital but this time they refused to let the parent do this and they had to do this for nearly a week. When we spoke to the hospital they were saying that there used to be a unit. Apparently, these units haven’t re-opened since COVID and that’s the issue. I mean even for Geraldton’s unit to still be closed when it is quite rural. I’m sure there would be other single parent's needing to look after their other children so I wonder what happens for them? Obviously this parent had to go through this situation, but this shouldn’t be happening.