"Wonderful nursing and medical staff"

Last night my daughter swallowed a magnet. I rang phone first who immediately rang me back and advised me to take her to the Emergency Department in Altnagelvin.

We arrived at 10pm unsurprisingly to a very busy place. People lying everywhere and I mean everywhere. some had more than 1 visitor with them leaving very little seating for sick people. I counted 10 people lying on the floor when I checked in. The first thing that struck me is how tired the building looked, drab, unclean with a foul odor and an extreme sickly dry heat hit me in the face as soon as we walked in.

There were 2 administrative staff at the reception. one was talking with ambulance staff, the other on a computer sitting sideways to the reception desk and has yet to acknowledge me waiting. I patiently waited until the one was finished speaking with ambulance staff. I gave my details which I must say was uncomfortable as I am a private person and I really do not like raising my voice when giving my personal details in a public space.

We managed to find a seat in the family/ children waiting area and put my daughter on my knee. A young lady with her son told me she had arrived over an hour before I arrived and still were not triaged. I feared at that point that we would have a long wait but I was so glad I was wrong. We were triaged quickly within 20 minutes by a fantastic nurse and Dr Dolan.

My only constructive comment is that whilst waiting I was so mindful to listen out for her name being called out as I have a hearing impairment and was afraid I would not hear her name called which stressed me a lot. I also think shouting names out in public is not nice for staff to be left to do and it is not confidential for the patient. Is there not a better way to do this in this day and age? 

We were told we were triaged quickly as this was an urgent matter due to the possibility of the damage a magnet could have caused and were assisted straight through to x-ray by the nurse. The overwhelming dry heat followed us everywhere I don't know how staff work in these conditions and it was not a warm summer night.

We were x-rayed quickly by lovely friendly staff who kept my daughter entertained, showing her the x-ray and where the magnet was. We were escorted to the pediatric waiting area afterwards to wait on the results. It was busy and very warm. It was nicely decorated in the cubicles however outside the cubicles the dull painted walls with the dry sickly heat gave the impression the area was unclean.

The floor in the cubicle where my daughter had her observations taken had small dried blood spats on the floor. My daughter was distressed over the blood and focused quite a bit on "children's blood" saying repeatedly will they try to take her blood telling me how much she didn't want this to happen and how much seeing this blood upset her.

The nurse covering the children's area was lovely, kind and never stopped offering my daughter some frozen yogurt as soon as we arrived. In the 3 hours we were there I only saw this nurse and Dr Dolan.

Their observations were recorded on the handheld encompass computer which I felt took away some of the face to face contact with the lovely nurse. The device looked like a phone which looked really unprofessional and I couldn't help but think of infection control issues whilst staff were using it for all patients.

Dr Dolan had been called away to several emergencies but still found the time to ensure my daughters observations were reported back and came to speak with us about after care which I am truly grateful for. He is an asset to the department. His bedside manner is exemplary, He involved me and my daughter in the conversations ensuring our understanding of what was said.

We were discharged within 4 hours of our arrival happy and grateful to have such wonderful nursing and medical staff look after us.