"Bringing Your Child To ED is a burden"

In the afternoon recently I took my 2 children who are under 10 years old  to the hospital to be seen by a doctor as there is no GP on Fridays/weekends.

My kids had been sick with flu symptoms and really wet coughs for almost 7 days and whilst the older omy children wasn’t too unwell their cough was getting worse but the main reason was my younger child's cough had worsened the last day or two that they were also vomiting frequently with the cough and fevers. We know it was probably viral but we were genuinely concerned about our younger child they were lethargic most of the day and when they were awake, coughing till they vomited as well as a lot of fevers.

When I went to the Corrigin Hospital ED I was greeted by the RN and I was made to discuss my child’s illness and my concern in the open waiting room, my children were not triaged, instead the nurse told me that the Telehealth doctors wouldn’t do much more than we were doing at home and the current wait time is 4-6 hours so it would be a lot of waiting for no reason but they would leave it up to me if I wanted to be seen.

I believe I was made to feel unwelcome and also made to feel like a burden on Telehealth and the hospital so I took my kids home as my kids were not triaged and as I recall, the nurse didn’t even ring Telehealth to see if that was the wait times or ask their advice. Really disappointing when in my experience in a small town, I only take my kids to ED when we are really concerned only in this case, to be made to feel unwelcome and a burden or even silly for bringing them to be seen in my opinion. Not happy!