When I arrived at the Royal Children’s hospital on Thursday with my mysteriously unwell and deteriorating child, there was just one person staffing the front desk, which seemed inadequate for the flow of misery trickling in the door: inconsolable screaming babies, listless toddlers and mums with stress-etched faces and work laptops on their knees.
This will take a while, I thought, but as soon as I stood up to stretch my legs, a triage doctor appeared and ran my son through the poking-prodding-reflex routine again. I toyed with Dr Google, my anxiety rising as I read about a possible condition that had been briefly mentioned by one nurse, and as I realised that we had been classified in the hospital’s second-highest category of urgency. All the same, it took a while for an actual doctor to come – the wait punctuated by cheerful visits from our assigned nurse.
The grand finale was another doctor, who I think was a specialist or registrar. She took about five minutes to decide the problem most likely wasn’t dire, but – and I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry – probably an immune system reaction to my son’s feet getting too cold, due to his insistence on wearing sandals in winter. Her prescription: socks.