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Care Opinion

Parents should not be forced to leave sick children

Posted By FAH

"Parents should not be forced to leave sick children"

About: Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh at Little France / General Surgery

(as a parent/guardian),

Had to take my 14 year old to A&E today.

I don't know if it is because of the building works but A&E is extremely difficult to find and not at all well signposted. We were travelling by car and as he could not walk, due to the pain, when we eventually found A&E I had to park temporarily at the entrance. Having checked him in, I then had to leave him, alone, in a packed waiting room whilst I went to try and park my car, some distance away and had to wait as the car park was full. Anything could have happened to him during this time and he had no adult with him. Thankfully he was fine and treated very well when he was seen by the Doctor.

There really should be better signposting, A&E parking and parents should not be forced to leave sick children on their own in a waiting room.

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Responses

Response from Jeannette Morrison, Head of Patient Experience, NHS Lothian 7 years ago
Jeannette Morrison
Head of Patient Experience,
NHS Lothian

Submitted on 10/05/2016 at 11:45
Published on Care Opinion at 11:48

Dear FAH,

I was sorry to hear of the difficulties that you experienced whilst taking your son to the Accident & Emergency Dept at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh last week.

As you will have seen there is a significant amout of building work ongoing on the campus at the moment and as result there have been some changes with the parking facilities. I am sorry for any inconvenience that this may have caused you and your son at this time.

I was very pleased to read how well your son was treated when he saw the doctor and hope that he is now feeling better.

Kind regards

Jeannette

  • {{helpful}} {{helpful == 1 ? "person thinks" : "people think"}} this response is helpful

Update posted by FAH (a parent/guardian)

Hi Jeannette,

As I said in my original story, I appreciate that essential building works are going on. However, I do find it odd that the A&E department is not well signposted. Would have been a priority I would have thought.

That aside, I am still concerned that considering your reply failed to mention the main matter - very sick children having to be left on their own for a relatively long period of time.

My reason for voicing my concerns was not to complain about parking per se but the consequences of the polices that are in place.

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