"I felt dismissed and belittled"

My toddler child had hurt their arm at home by falling from their bed. I monitored them for half an hour or so and decided I would take them to ED to be checked. My concerns were that my child wasn’t using their arm sufficiently and was very clingy to me which was not their usual behaviour. I was seen by triage and we waited for the doctor in the waiting room.

Eventually, we were taken through fast track, the doctor conducted a physical examination and I recall stated that clinically my child is fine and there is no obvious fracture. I said “that is fine, but to me my child is not using it as normal nor is their behaviour normal". I recall I was told that they are thinking of me with two small children, if my child gets an x-ray, I will be waiting for hours, there is no point when there is clearly nothing wrong with them, they are using their hand and able to move and grasp things and I will be exposing them to radiation they do not need. I just said "okay". I recall the doctor then said that I don't seem happy with this? I replied "I'm not, to you my child may be using it properly but to me they are not, my child couldn't even get into the car which they are very proficient at doing by themselves. I recall this was followed by, did I pull on my child’s arm is that how they hurt it?

I felt that was a disgusting thing to ask with zero reason behind asking this. Was I being too concerned? No, I felt I was not being listened to.

We went home. My child spent the afternoon in hysterics I felt like I couldn't even take them back to ED because I was wrong and would be wasting resources. That night was very upsetting my child woke a lot crying in pain.

So the following day I took my child back to ED where they were seen by another doctor whose comments were almost the same besides the apparent “abuse question". The doctor spoke to a senior doctor who came back to me and I recall said that clinically there is nothing wrong with my child, but because I was so insistent they will get my child an x-ray to rule anything out. They suspect it is just some soft tissue injury.

End of the story, my child was diagnosed with a green stick fracture and will be treated by the fracture clinic.

I appreciate doctors do many years of training but I feel they should take into consideration a parent’s instincts and that they are with their children daily.

I have been in another situation with my baby where I had to continually advocate for them while being dismissed by multiple doctors and health professionals.

Please respect parents and ensure you're listening to them.

Staff attitude