I didn’t write this yesterday because I was just a little bit too tired and a little bit too annoyed to fire up the blog.
Eve and I took a little trip to A&E (ER to any Americans reading this) yesterday. Eve had hurt her elbow playing in the garden on Thursday evening and it was hurting her yesterday morning so we wanted to get it checked out just to make sure there wasn’t anything worse than a sprain. I don’t drive very much, I don’t actually have a full license yet (I’ve been on the waiting list for a test for about 15 months now but that’s another story), so we had to take public transport.
We left the house at about 9am and were able to get a lift to the DART station, from there we were on our own. I decided to bring her to St Vincent’s Hospital close to Dublin city centre because it’s about an hour away from us if we take the DART. Sure enough we got there easily and were seen almost immediately. The nurse and the doctor who had a look at Eve were lovely and were able to tell me that she had a pulled elbow. Something quite common in little children with their extremely flexible bones sometimes flexing a little too much and going out of place. He was able to tell me exactly how this very common ailment is fixed…a simple turn of the arm and it would click back in place. Great! I thought, but then he told me that he was sorry but he couldn’t do it. St. Vincent’s is not a children’s hospital and they’re not insured to treat children in any way. I’d have to go to Crumlin Hospital or Tallaght.
I went outside to reception and asked the lovely ladies behind the desk if they could tell me how I could make my way to either of those hospitals. They weren’t sure other than to suggest a taxi, they didn’t think there was a bus or if there was where I would catch it. Neither option was really good for me…I don’t like to take Eve in a car without a kid’s car seat (it’s not legal for a start let alone safe) and I know from previous experience that Eve’s buggy won’t fit on most Dublin Buses. The ladies then suggested I go to Temple St hospital, they weren’t sure where it was but they knew it was close to Connolly station and I could get there by DART.
So that’s where I headed. We got off at Connolly at about 11:30am, Eve was loving all the train trips although her arm was giving her some pain, she’s a trouper and wasn’t too grumpy. As long as I supplied constant snacks and distractions she was happy enough. We got some vague directions from a lady at the station and started walking. Unfortunately it’s a lot further than the receptionists at St. Vincent’s thought and I took a few wrong turns. It’s not a part of town I know very well and there are no sign posts to tell you where the hospital is. I got directions about 4 or 5 times and finally found the little alleyway that is the entrance to the hospital. By that time we’d been walking for 45 minutes and Eve was fast asleep. I had to wake her so she could be seen which was thankfully quite quickly. I was worried we were in for a long wait when I saw the amount of people crammed into the little wards and waiting rooms. Everyone is in on top of each other, listening in on everyone else’s consultations. At one point a little girl was having her x-rays examined in the middle of the ward and we were all in on the discussion. The doctors and nurses must be masters of organisation to be able to remember who’s who and what needs to be done in the middle of all that.
Eve was seen and treated sitting on a waiting area seat by a door with people barrelling past. The doctor was lovely and although she was upset because it was quite a painful thing to have her bones popped back in place, Eve was great. She impressed the nurses by drinking her Baby Nurofen herself from the little cup they gave her, but she was starting to get very tired and so was I. With X-Rays and waiting time, we were there for about an hour and a half, so not really all that bad.
So now I just had to make my way back to the DART station…but I managed to get myself turned around somehow and ended up down at Croke Park. Don’t ask me how…I thought I was heading for Gardiner Street. Eve wasn’t happy at all by now but she fell asleep again while we walked….and walked. Finally I found my way back to Tara Street DART station almost an hour and a half after leaving the hospital. After that it was just a matter of getting a DART back to Greystones.
We walked back through the front door at 4:30pm. 8 hours after leaving the house. I’d spent about 3 to 4 hours of that time walking the streets of Dublin pushing a heavy buggy and was pretty worn out. I was also a little bit shocked at just how difficult it is for a person with no car to get their child seen in an emergency.
Now, I don’t blame anyone but myself for getting lost coming out of the hospital, I would have saved myself about 45 minutes without that little detour, but I just can’t understand why the first hospital we went to couldn’t treat Eve. I mean, sure, have children’s hospitals for serious illnesses and in-patient care, but surely not A&E? I got a little taste of what it must be like to be a parent of a child who has an emergency and doesn’t live even as close as we do.
Can anyone tell me…(because I’ve spent some time on the internet trying to find out and can’t find any clear information about it), when the plans to merge all the children’s hospitals into one national children’s hospital go through…will that mean even fewer places where young children can be seen on an emergency basis?
