"Some good, some bad"

I rushed my wee boy to A&E after he started shaking and his lips and nails went very blue when we were out at a shop. He’d been running a temperature for 5 days by this point and has been seen by the GP the day prior with the completely reasonable suspicion of having picked up a virus from starting nursery the week before. 

He was born with a congenital heart defect and when he was looking cyanosed, my stomach dropped as I thought it could be his heart. I was in a bit of a flap and a panic when I got to A&E but they took him in very quickly. His temp was 39.9° and his blood sugar was under 4. The girls in A&E were all so lovely and we were then admitted to the children’s ward. 

I want to start by saying the staff on the children’s ward were so nice. From nurses, to doctors, to HCAs to domestics. Everyone was very friendly and really good when interacting with my wee boy and putting us at ease.

I also want to say that the sensory room they have is brilliant! It really helped my wee boy when he was upset or even just restless! I hope they don’t get rid of it. 

However, there were a few things that made our stay quite unpleasant. I found the noise level terrible, unfortunately. I understand that that is just the nature of a hospital, but when doctors are in and out of the bay in the middle of the night, they could bear in mind that there are other babies, children and adults in the room trying to sleep and just lower their volume a bit rather than having big booming voices on. And when you’ve been woken several times in a few hours, along with your child having several unsuccessful attempts at blood test and cannulas, it starts to become tiring. 

Obs machine’s alarms screamed several times in the night because they were left unplugged, so other parents/carers had to go up to the nurses station to tell a nurse and the whole room was awake yet again and again. 

There was a child that would scream what felt like every 20 minutes and became even more distressed every time they were held and forced to use an inhaler or nebuliser which was awful for the child, but again had my wee boy so scared and distraught through the day and night. At this point you would have thought that we could have been moved into one of the side rooms, where there was at least 4 free, because it was very obvious how distressed my wee boy was.  

I tried to deal with these things as best as possible (as I’ve said, I understand it’s the nature of a hospital) but it led to me pacing the corridors most of the day and all night with my wee one, to the point that my hips are in so much pain that I can’t walk holding him just now and I’ve got an appointment with physio. 

I did ask during the day, after the first awful night, if we could be moved into one of the empty side rooms and were told no. During the second night of this happening, I paced until almost midnight until I was in tears with my hips and asked the nurses if they could give my wee boy his antibiotic and then I was taking him home. I did also suggest that I would stay if we were put into a side room which they agreed to and I can’t stress how grateful I was. My wee one got a solid 6 hours sleep. 

Other things that could be improved on are that I was not offered any food for myself for the three days we were in. Now I can’t leave my baby on the ward alone and my husband was not always around to take over from me to let me go and get food. The poor opening times of the cafeteria meant I had to leave the hospital when my husband was present to go to the supermarket for a sandwich or something similar. This is the only children’s ward I’ve ever been on that doesn’t offer one parent a meal. 

Also we were only offered adult meals for my young child. I tried to pick the softest option but when it came it was so salty that even I would find it a struggle to eat, never mind the stress that would put a baby's kidneys under. I did ask if there was other options but was told that was really all that was on the menu. The second night after he couldn’t eat what came up, I politely expressed that the food just wasn’t suitable for a baby and was then told that he could order a blended option or that there was baby food pouches! Why I was not told this earlier escapes me! 

I also found it odd that there were no jugs of water put out or offered.  Maybe there’s a reason for this but I just thought it strange. 

But that is my experience. Some good, some bad, and I hope some positive change can come from it.