This article is from page 8 of the 2013-08-13 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 8 JPG
A DISTRESSED mother has told how she relied on the kindness of strangers who were themselves at the mercy of the health services, as she waited more than three hours to have her two-year-old daughter’s head injury assessed.
The long wait at the University Hospital Limerick’s Emergency Department (ED) began at 6.45pm on Tuesday.
The little girl had received a bang to the head earlier that evening after a gate swung back on her. The family travelled to the only hospital in the region permitted to take injured children under the age of five to have the head injury examined and treated.
After a long wait to see a nurse, the worried mother was less than satisfied when she was “asked how it happened, my name, my contact number and advised there were two people ahead of us and it would be approximately an hour before she would be seen”.
The little toddler was then sent back out to the waiting room with her wound open and uncovered.
“At 9.30pm, 2.45 hours later, I approached the reception desk at AandE and pleaded with the lady that she be reviewed as she was a child with a head injury. There were tears in my eyes by now,” said the upset mother.
“The lady behind the desk seemed surprised that she wasn’t reviewed and said she is a child who should be given priority,” she said, adding that she told her to go through to a room inside in the emergency department.
“I met a nurse there and I advised her that the lady in reception suggested I bring her in …. There was only one other patient in there at the time but the nurse advised I would have to leave and wait outside.”
Eventually more than three hours later she was called through to ED.
“During this time I stood with my child in my arms and tried to console her as much as I could. An elderly man on a stretcher bed actually got up and let her lie down on his bed for a few minutes so she could try and get comfortable. After a few minutes I felt bad for the man and moved her. Another woman gave me a chair.”
“When she was eventually called by the doctor at approximately 10pm she was extremely upset as she was tired, exhausted and sore. She got upset on entering the [examination] room and I tried to calm her down, she ran out and I followed her, as she was scared of what was going on. As I left the doctor shouted after me ‘you answer my questions and the nurse will go after her’. I kept walking after my daughter but I could hear a nurse saying to him the child needs her mother.
“I eventually calmed her down, with the help of a lovely woman who gave her some chocolate from her hand bag. The doctor approached us and asked if she was okay now and I advised yes – she understands what will happen, to which he replied, good I will see another patient and I will be back. I could not believe this, neither could patients or people in the area that witnessed it. My daughter is two and a half years old, had been waiting in a strange place for over three hours for a doctor and she got scared. She is only a child. I find it absolutely unacceptable that my daughter had to wait over three hours for a doctor to assess her head injury,” said her tired mother.
She paid tribute to the other patients who helped her through the ordeal stating “They were people who cared more about me than the nurses and doctors.”
Since the episode in the ED the little girl was taken to her GP at the weekend, as the cut was badly infected. She is now on antibiotics for the infection.