"Emergency Department failure for children at risk"

Arrived at the Emergency Department. Looked busy but not overwhelmingly busy like some hospitals I have seen. I feel that the triage team is a joke. One nurse who triaged had all their patients go through quickly. The other, their threshold was much stricter in terms of how they rated your problem.

Basically, I arrived with my young child at 9.30 pm, got to see a triage nurse at 11.00 pm. I feel that they are really slow, the worst I have ever seen. In between people who refused to wait who they triaged and amongst their constant chatter of gossip. The area is very small. You hear everything. My young child had croup. My child was quite bad, but understood we had to wait. My child was triaged at a 4 from the triage nurse who had a high threshold. My child was coughing so much and struggled to breathe when they were having coughing fits due to their blocked nose. I was advised that my child had to wear a mask. I understand this, but for a very young child to wear an adult size mask with the issues with their breathing was incredibly unrealistic. A lot of older patients waiting to be seen could not understand and were rude. The children's waiting area is approximately 8-10 chairs. There was no room, so we waited in the general area. My child also had a temperature despite having pain relief medication for the last few days to bring it down. They gave my child Panadol some 30 minutes later while we were waiting in the waiting room with everyone else. Despite my child’s coughing fits, high temperatures and complaints struggling to breathe, we were not further seen.

I saw people come and go. I saw one person whose partner refused to wait and seemed quite rude in their responses. That person was seen immediately by the triage nurse who scored what seemed was low and that person was admitted straight away! From what I heard, that person had pain but nothing that I felt would warrant seriousness. 

Fast forward to 1:45 am, we finally get asked to come through. Only to be intaked to wait on chairs for the duration of the assessment, no bed for a young child that was sleeping and no care. We still had not been seen but they intake more patients to wait in the area they put chairs - could not understand the purpose of this and nor was this adequate for patients. There were not even enough chairs at this point. I was told to hold my child instead of letting my child sleep across one chair and myself. I advised they needed more chairs for the amount of patients they just took in and was advised by one nurse, who I feel was rude, well we don't have any, and then shook their head. Seriously, don't transfer patients to come in from the waiting room if there is no space. It's not rocket science.

Finally around 2:45 am we saw a nurse who did the observations and then a doctor around 3:15 am who advised that my child did have croup and immediately needed the stronger steroid medication than the usual. My child was finally given this and we were discharged not long after. So from 9:30pm till 3:30am, for a young child with serious croup, just for medication.

I feel it is a joke of a system. Unrealistic expectations and, I feel, a pathetic system for a semi new hospital with incompetent staff, yet there was an abundance of nurses but not doctors. In my opinion the facilities are not appropriately set up or designed. I feel that children are not considered high priority and will be assessed with the general public to wait.

What I don't understand was the "live" waiting times, it advised 90 mins for St John of God Hospital Midland for anyone who was triaged at a 4. However it was 4.5 hours! The live stream was not true to reflect what was going on. Not sure why they made out it was only that low. Or do they falsify intakes to say they were admitted to a bed when clearly they are still in the waiting room? For a new hospital, the Emergency Department is a joke. I will never be returning.