"Children's A&E"

We arrived at 16.30 on a Sunday with a 9 year old girl with a large piece of glass in the top of her foot.

We were turned away from Beverley as glass was involved and so wasn't a Minor Injury........This was removed on arrival, dressed and then we waited for an X Ray to see if any glass was left in. This done, we waited another 2 hours for the wound to be dressed.

The doctor sprayed the foot with a numbing lotion and told the nurse to put 2 stitches in and bandage it. She put on 2 steristrips and a plaster......by now it was 20.30 and we didn't want to wait again for the doctor to be free for him to tell another nurse to do the job as instructed and so left.

It was dressed properly at Hornsea Cottage Hospital Minor Injuries and the nurse there said it should have been glued, stitched and bandaged. By now it was too late to stitch and there is now a risk of infection.

The main grounds for complaint are: there were children coming in every 10 mins or so and only one doctor on duty! A lot of these children could have been dealt with by a nurse - of which there seemed to be plenty sitting about and chatting - to free the doctor up to deal with the more urgent cases.

Why was there only one doctor on duty? Poor man was run off his feet! Unfortunately, some parents overreact over a really minor injury and surely these can be taken and treated by a nurse at the Triage stage to free up the doctor to treat the 'serious' injuries.