"Horrible experience at ED"

I drove 6 hours to present to Karratha ED for a threatened miscarriage from a small town nearby. When I walked into emergency I wasn’t greeted by anyone so I took a seat with my partner on the triage seating.

A few moments later I recall a nurse gave a rude wave and pointed at the window and rudely said never walk into an emergency department without speaking to me first, I was horrified I just replied ok and then they said what are you here for. I was shocked and horrified to be treated like that when walking into an emergency department, I was also going through what I thought was a miscarriage.

They made me feel horrible, I had the choice to go to Perth or Karratha and, based on my experience, I will never present back to Karratha again because of them. Hats off to the extremely nice fifo nurse who took my obs in the waiting room, she was amazing and made me feel much better, if it wasn’t for her I would have left. My partner wasn’t even allowed to be at the triage window with me, as they sat down I recall the first nurse rudely pointed and said you can go sit over there in the rudest tone. At any emergency department I have presented to, my partner had never been told they couldn’t be at the triage window with me. I get if that’s the rules here but a please or thank you and a nice tone goes along way.

I actually found out later that I have a subchorionic haematoma which could be the cause of the bleeding. When I went through I asked the dr what my bleeding was caused from and they said they don’t know and it isn’t looking like a miscarriage because the sac hadn’t collapsed, I don’t understand why I wasn’t sent for a proper ultrasound to see what was going on. I was in there for 10 minutes max and left feeling like I still had no idea what was going on. Based on my experience, I will never present back to Karratha hospital ever again.

The dr was nice but I felt I wasn’t investigated properly knowing that I now have a large subchorionic haematoma. I was happy to get the nurses name from their badge, I feel they need to be told to stop treating patients the way they did that day. I believe they should put herself in the patients shoes and actually understand how they feel.