"Let down by lack of care"

We arrived in the emergency department via ambulance with our young son who had rapidly become unwell. I was dumped in the waiting room with him and told someone would be with me.

My son was vomiting quite significantly and repeatedly on the journey and in the waiting room. I had to make the trip to reception, dripping in vomit, leaving a trail of baby milk and bile behind and asked the receptionist for a sick bowl, perhaps a towel and a gown for me to change in to / cover myself in as I had already prepped a bag and was hurriedly handed a few sheets of kitchen towel.

We were then taken through to be assessed and the Nurse asked us to return to the waiting room. However, I was unhappy at this, having such a young child who I wanted to try and make more comfortable and was begrudgingly put in Room 4. I felt the nurse’s bedside manner was appalling and as they left the room exclaimed to the nursing assistant that a wean was being sick, and it looked fine to them. I found this utterly inappropriate.

My husband arrived at ED reception and asked to come through to room 4, where the receptionist told him he'd be lucky, as they’re very crabbit in there tonight and strict about who gets through. Presumably it must be some sort of lottery if you’re given access to sit with your loved ones. We then spent the entire night in the room, from around midnight until 04:45 am, and not a single person - not a nursing assistant, not a nurse, not a doctor, nobody - came through the door to ask if we were okay, if we needed anything, or to even check on my son who we had attended for in the first place.

Given that we'd had a 4-night stay in paediatrics only a couple of months earlier and I had relayed my concerns over my child’s symptoms being a re-occurrence of the previous admission, nobody seemed to care.

At around 3:30 am I asked the nursing assistant where the toilet was and stunningly their response was that it’s back through in reception, but if I go there I might not get back in. So now you’ve to wait for an undefined amount of time in a room, holding in your urine because it’s a lottery as to whether or not you get back in with your child? I found this absolutely shocking.

At around 04:30 am, the Charge Nurse passed the room and I stepped out to ask them what the wait time was now and they said there’s  someone in front of me and I don’t think they’ll be seen any time soon. So at that I asked if we could discharge ourselves and call our GP at 9 am because it didn’t look like we were going to be seen by a Dr in there before then, to which their response was to simply say fine. 

I fully appreciate that the service is busy, however the amount of staff sitting around at computers, nursing assistants gossiping in the corridor about the new takeaway they’d tried and where they’re going on annual leave, you’d think someone would show some sort of caring qualities and step in to check on patients and their families.

I am absolutely furious at the lack of care provided last night because undoubtedly there are staff in the emergency department who are working hard, but in my view there are a few who really should not be in that kind of role if this is how they would expect to be treated if they or their family members attended the department.